ARCHIVE: Open Theism part 1

[Delmar]

How many of you hold to the Open View of God?

More than fifty by my count, but there are 15-20 of that number who rarely post

 

[Hilston]

Combined reply to:

• deardelmar
• muzicman

Dear deardelmar,

From an earlier post of yours:

The topic was believing. Open theists believe Paul when he says that we are justified by believing rather than being justified by works.

Justification as described in the Bible occurs on three levels:

• We are justified before others by our works (Romans 4:2 "For SINCE Abraham was justified by works, he hath whereof to glory; but not before God.");
• We are justified before ourselves by faith* (Romans 4:3 "Abraham believed God, and it was counted unto him [Abraham] for righteousness.");
• We are justified before God by the blood of Christ alone (Romans 5:9 "Much more then, being now justified by his blood;" Romans 8:33 "It is God that justifieth").

*Note: Whenever the Bible speaks of justification by our faith, it refers only to our personal internal recognition of the righteousness standing granted to us in Christ by God. We see our faith and see that we are right with God (as did Abraham).

Jim Hilston claims that by accepting Pauls words as the truth, Open Theists have to save themselves.

You may be accepting Paul's words, but not Paul's meaning. That is the crux of the issue here: The prejudiced Open Theist hermeneutic that does violence to language, logic and scripture.

Jim you pointed out in your 'Bob has lost the debate' thread that the only way to deny God is to suppress belief. I am agreeing with you when I say that the only way not to believe that Jesus Christ is Lord is to suppress belief in unrighteousness. To believe is not something you work for, not something you achieve, it takes no effort. Unbelief takes effort.

You're confusing hubris apples and humility oranges. Paul talks about the universal and innate knowledge of God that all men have. Their pride prevents them from yielding to and embracing the God that they know to exist. That is not the belief that brings humility, awe and reverence toward Christ that is commanded by Paul elsewhere. Your logic makes evangelism superfluous.

Since believing that Jesus Christ is Lord takes no effort, only the worst kind of fool would claim that to be saved by believing in (rather than rejecting) Jesus is to "save yourself".

This is the standard Arminian/Open-View rationalization. Regardless of whether you think it is "work" or not, it is something that the human being does that is required on the Open View in order for someone to be saved. That makes Christ's work insufficient in and of itself to save anyone. Man must save himself. He must grab the rope, according to the Open View.

the muzicman

You know, it helps if you read the entire verse (and I know it's asking alot, given your attention span, ...

So what you're saying is ... Hey, look at that! Ooooo. Shiny!

... but the whole chapter would be good, too). Notice that Jesus immediately after saying that he won't cast out those who come to him, says that "the one who beholds the Son of Man and believes in him will have eternal life, and (Christ) will raise him up on the last day." (John 6:40)

The OpenView errs in eisegetically imposing a causal relationship between believing and having eternal life. The verse literally translates "the beholding one ... and the believing one ... has eternal life." All present-tense verbs. Just because the syntax puts belief before eternal life does not mean that belief is a pre-requisite. It is a statement of fact. "The one who is inside my house will have access to my silverware." The statement has nothing to do with how the person gets inside of my house -- whether he walked in by invitation, or broke in illegally. Paul says that "... we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose." The syntax does not imply that the "things work[ing] together for good" are prerequisite for us to love God, or to be "the called-ones according to His purpose." (Romans 8:28).

Clearly there is a faith response required before God gives someone to Christ. Otherwise, none of this makes sense.

Not according to John 6:37 "All that the Father gives (present tense) Me shall come (future tense) to Me;" The Father was at that time giving the elect to Christ, then present-tense, and those whom the Father was giving to Christ would, at a future point in time, come to Christ.

If the Coast Guard flys out to you to save you from floating in the ocean, ...

Here again is the flaw in your analogy. The shipwrecked man is not merely "floating in the ocean." He's been dead for days. This flawed analogy is consistent with the Open View's failure to appreciate the severity of the depravity of man. Dead ears cannot hear. They cannot be made to hear by the dead person. Their ears must be made to hear by the only One with the power to do so. A dead person cannot grab a rope. He cannot make himself come to life and grab it. He must be made alive by the only One with the power to do so.

Who sets the standard for salvation? God or you?

God, of course. And the requirement for salvation is one thing only: The Blood of Christ shed in one's behalf. Period. No works. No faith. Nothing added. Absolute satisfaction by the sacrifice of Christ.

Right, God determined that in his loving nature, he would condemn most of mankind to eternal judgment. Why does God sound like a psychotic, deranged killer who demands that the victims he lets live love him, after the Calvinist gets done with him?

I'm not a Calvinist. And God is not the standard for your behavior. His Word is. When man measures God against man, He will look like a deranged pscyhco. That is why Adam was warned not to eat of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. Adam listened to Lucifer, just like hapless people will give ear to Open Theism, and in so doing, they see that the Biblical descriptions of God seem monstrous and evil, even psychotic and deranged. When Adam chose to listen to Lucifer and to measure God by Adam, Adam fell. The sin of the Garden is the sin of Open Theism: Man measuring God by Man.

So, God CANNOT create a universe where there are agents who act outside of his determinitive will? Sounds like a human limitation to me.

God cannot cease to be God. God cannot cease to be logical. God cannot cease to be truthful. These are not a human limitations at all. In fact, they are not limitations. God cannot do these things, not because He chooses not to, but because it is impossible to do so. God does not have a "choice" when it comes to being truthful. It is impossible for Him to lie (Heb 6:18).

Hypocrite, moron, jackass, liar and tool(shed),
Jim

 

[themuzicman]

the muzicman

The OpenView errs in eisegetically imposing a causal relationship between believing and having eternal life. The verse literally translates "the beholding one ... and the believing one ... has eternal life." All present-tense verbs. Just because the syntax puts belief before eternal life does not mean that belief is a pre-requisite. It is a statement of fact. "The one who is inside my house will have access to my silverware." The statement has nothing to do with how the person gets inside of my house -- whether he walked in by invitation, or broke in illegally. Paul says that "... we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose." The syntax does not imply that the "things work[ing] together for good" are prerequisite for us to love God, or to be "the called-ones according to His purpose." (Romans 8:28).

Apparantly Hilston can't handle John 6:45

Not according to John 6:37 "All that the Father gives (present tense) Me shall come (future tense) to Me;" The Father was at that time giving the elect to Christ, then present-tense, and those whom the Father was giving to Christ would, at a future point in time, come to Christ.

How do you explain the problem of the neuter "all" in that verse, especially since, in the last half of that verse, there is a masculine "the one who comes to me"? Seems to me that we ought to translated "all" as "all things" not "the elect".

Here again is the flaw in your analogy. The shipwrecked man is not merely "floating in the ocean." He's been dead for days. This flawed analogy is consistent with the Open View's failure to appreciate the severity of the depravity of man. Dead ears cannot hear. They cannot be made to hear by the dead person. Their ears must be made to hear by the only One with the power to do so. A dead person cannot grab a rope. He cannot make himself come to life and grab it. He must be made alive by the only One with the power to do so.

Lovely assertion. Do dead men walk?

God, of course. And the requirement for salvation is one thing only: The Blood of Christ shed in one's behalf. Period. No works. No faith. Nothing added. Absolute satisfaction by the sacrifice of Christ.

If only your view were biblical.

I'm not a Calvinist. And God is not the standard for your behavior. His Word is. When man measures God against man, He will look like a deranged pscyhco. That is why Adam was warned not to eat of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. Adam listened to Lucifer, just like hapless people will give ear to Open Theism, and in so doing, they see that the Biblical descriptions of God seem monstrous and evil, even psychotic and deranged. When Adam chose to listen to Lucifer and to measure God by Adam, Adam fell. The sin of the Garden is the sin of Open Theism: Man measuring God by Man.

So, God can do whatever He wants, and it's good by definition?

God cannot cease to be God. God cannot cease to be logical. God cannot cease to be truthful. These are not a human limitations at all. In fact, they are not limitations. God cannot do these things, not because He chooses not to, but because it is impossible to do so. God does not have a "choice" when it comes to being truthful. It is impossible for Him to lie (Heb 6:18).

Can I take that to mean 'no'?

Hypocrite, moron, jackass, liar and tool(shed),
Jim

You've been taken to the toolshed. Funny part is that you don't realize it!

Michael

 

[RobE]

So, God can do whatever He wants, and it's good by definition?

As long as He is God.

Rob

 

[Clete]

As long as He is God.

Rob

If so God is unjust by His own given standard and therefore a hypocrite.

God is not the "Do as I say and not as I do." sort of God but is rather the "Be Holy as I am Holy!" sort of God!

The God of the Bible is loving, just and kind and commands us to be like Him! We are not commanded to be capricious and arbitrary!

Your comment is blasphemous. God cannot do anything inconsistent with the way He is right now and remain holy. If you believe otherwise you believe in a god other than that spoken of in the Bible.

Your comment is, however, the logically consistent position drawn from a Calvinistic worldview and it is therefore one of the most powerful arguments against the theology. No such hypocritical god exists. Believing otherwise is idolatry and suggesting that the God of Scripture is such a God is blasphemy of the highest order.

Resting in Him,
Clete

 

[themuzicman]

As long as He is God.

Rob

So, there is no standard for good that comes from His nature, it's just whatever God does?

Muz

 

[Philetus]

How many of you hold to the Open View of God?

100%
I just can't help it.

There are days I wish I had never heard it called Open View. It was much easier just thinking I was a heretic. :banned:


Philetus​

 

[Delmar]

Combined reply to:

• deardelmar
• muzicman

Dear deardelmar,

From an earlier post of yours:
Justification as described in the Bible occurs on three levels:

• We are justified before others by our works (Romans 4:2 "For SINCE Abraham was justified by works, he hath whereof to glory; but not before God.");
• We are justified before ourselves by faith* (Romans 4:3 "Abraham believed God, and it was counted unto him [Abraham] for righteousness.");
  
• We are justified before God by the blood of Christ alone (Romans 5:9 "Much more then, being now justified by his blood;" Romans 8:33 "It is God that justifieth").

Jim

Where did you come up with before others and before ourselves?

 

[Philetus]

At one time I actually held to the view that God knew all of the future until I realized that I had no biblical basis for believing that. I came to understand that the whole concept of God outside of time and seeing all things as an eternal now was from Greek philosophy and, in modern times, from the theory of relativity.

Now, I understand from the Bible that God can know the future. But the Bible shows us when He does. He determines it. When He determines it, He makes it happen. Therefore, He can know that it will happen, but that does not mean that He knows it because He looks into the future to know it.

The Hebrew word nacham, repent, is used in the Bible in reference to God over 20 times. The passage that really affected me greatly was found in Deuteronomy, but now, I prefer the passage in Exodus where it shows God repented of stated harm because of Moses’ prayer. Ex 32:9-14 And the LORD said to Moses, “I have seen this people, and indeed it is a stiff-necked people! 10 Now therefore, let Me alone, that My wrath may burn hot against them and I may consume them. And I will make of you a great nation.” 11 Then Moses pleaded with the LORD his God, and said: “LORD, why does Your wrath burn hot against Your people whom You have brought out of the land of Egypt with great power and with a mighty hand? 12 Why should the Egyptians speak, and say, ‘He brought them out to harm them, to kill them in the mountains, and to consume them from the face of the earth’? Turn from Your fierce wrath, and repent from this harm to Your people. 13 Remember Abraham, Isaac, and Israel, Your servants, to whom You swore by Your own self, and said to them, ‘I will multiply your descendants as the stars of heaven; and all this land that I have spoken of I give to your descendants, and they shall inherit it forever.’” 14 So the LORD repented from the harm which He said He would do to His people.

From this and many other passages with that Hebrew word relating to God, I have drawn this conclusion: If God was outside of time and saw all the future actions of men, God could never be wrong about predictions. I also believe: If the future actions of men are unknowable because they have not been decided, our all knowing God would not know them because they do not exist. None of them actually exist, so there is nothing to know.

When we read the Bible, God always exists in time. But, time is no restraint to Him like it is to us. We need to rest at times. But He doesn’t. We are growing old. He is always the same it that attribute. Most of us have deadlines to keep and other time responsibilities that are measured by time. With God, time is no burden. I see time as the measure between two events. Since God can control every event, if He so desires, time is never a burden to Him at all. He created the universe. We haven’t even seen the farthest galaxy in this tremendous universe. When God created it, it seems like it was instantaneous. Therefore, I do not believe the future exists until it actually happens.

In Christ,
Bob Hill

Great post Bob, I may be the worst debater on the planet, and the least schooled in Open Theism, but the likes of this post is what convinces me that the views I have held for so long are in fact biblical. You have a unique gift of being both scholarly and human. I was not convinced by what I read here at TOL. It only confirmed what I learned from Holy Spirit and Bible study. At TOL I only learned it was called Open Theism, Open View, or Unsettled Future or whatever.
Thank you.

​

 

[seekinganswers]

At one time I actually held to the view that God knew all of the future until I realized that I had no biblical basis for believing that. I came to understand that the whole concept of God outside of time and seeing all things as an eternal now was from Greek philosophy and, in modern times, from the theory of relativity.

Once again the way in which you present knowledge of the future is very unbiblical. To know the future within the scriptures has nothing to do with having factual knowledge about events. In fact, such "knowledge" for the scriptures is really not knowledge at all. If you are going to present knowledge of the future as a historical foresight, than the knowledge that God has, has become for you a fortune-telling ability (at least for those events that you will allow God to "know").

In this sense, you are very right that there is no biblical basis for it. But you must realize than that there is no basis for even your limited view of God's knowledge (that God only knows certain things) because you have not succeeded in turning away from a secular view of knowledge (which is really a very Modern view). You still place God as a passive observer of the events of the Creation, so that the Creation lives and moves and is on its own in many ways, and God sits back and waits for this life to unfold and interact with God's own life. Once again I ask you how a statement of Paul's like "for in God we live and move and have our being," or "for out of him, and through him, and unto him are all things" can hold with your view?

As far as your statement concerning God and time are concerned I will ask you this. How do you conceive of time in the first place? Do you not concede that time at the very least has a beginning and has a culmination? The reason I must hold to this view of time is that time has at the very least a beginning and also a reaction. You see, time is not a linear environment in which seconds tick off from eternity to eternity for me (like a background atomic clock for the universe). Time is characterized specifically, for me, by the way in which a cause enacts an effect. Temporal beings live within the realm of cause and effect (contingency, if you will). So there is an initial point of time (the kephale or rosh in the scriptures) which is the initiator for what follows. This kephale of time is the means by which the Universe (and time) comes about. The Father is not the kephale, but Christ is, within the scriptures. The Father is the source of the kephale and the telos (the culmination) which means that Christ and the Spirit proceed from the Father into the Creation, and enwrap the Creation within the Father's will. It would be absurd to say that God was within the kephale and the telos of the universe (for the Father is the source of them, and the three together compose the Godhead). God is not within time, but God enwraps time within Godself. God does not see the universe as an eternal now (as if God were a passive observer of the Universe); no, God drives the Creation within God's self so as to conform the Creation to his will.

Now, I understand from the Bible that God can know the future. But the Bible shows us when He does. He determines it. When He determines it, He makes it happen. Therefore, He can know that it will happen, but that does not mean that He knows it because He looks into the future to know it.

Once again, you have placed God within the Creation as an observer of it, so that God gets wrapped up within cause and effect, rather than God wrapping up the Creation in God's kephale and telos. You are right that God does not "look into the future" as if God were a passive observer of it. No, God is active in God's knowledge, so that what God knows, is sustained in God's knowing it. To know in the Hebrew is not a passive observation through the senses, to know is to set. The tree of Knowledge in the garden was an exchange of allowing God to set what is right to a human driving of what is good and right (humanity exchanged the Creation of God, what exists and what truly consists in God, for their own Creation, which was actually death).

The Hebrew word nacham, repent, is used in the Bible in reference to God over 20 times. The passage that really affected me greatly was found in Deuteronomy, but now, I prefer the passage in Exodus where it shows God repented of stated harm because of Moses’ prayer. Ex 32:9-14 And the LORD said to Moses, “I have seen this people, and indeed it is a stiff-necked people! 10 Now therefore, let Me alone, that My wrath may burn hot against them and I may consume them. And I will make of you a great nation.” 11 Then Moses pleaded with the LORD his God, and said: “LORD, why does Your wrath burn hot against Your people whom You have brought out of the land of Egypt with great power and with a mighty hand? 12 Why should the Egyptians speak, and say, ‘He brought them out to harm them, to kill them in the mountains, and to consume them from the face of the earth’? Turn from Your fierce wrath, and repent from this harm to Your people. 13 Remember Abraham, Isaac, and Israel, Your servants, to whom You swore by Your own self, and said to them, ‘I will multiply your descendants as the stars of heaven; and all this land that I have spoken of I give to your descendants, and they shall inherit it forever.’” 14 So the LORD repented from the harm which He said He would do to His people.

I know that you are drawing this from process theologians, for they are the ones who have undertaken the "burden" of exegeting these very passages of which you speak. My professor in college who was very much enamoured by John Cobb used these passages on more than one occassion. And my professor used them in very much the same as you have done above. I will not say that because he is a process theologian that he is wrong, but I myself am not convinced by his approach to these texts.

There is a simple reason why I am utterly unconvinced by your exegetical approach to this passage, namely that you have turned God into a "hot-head" who must be calmed down by Moses in order to begin to think straight once again. God is all up in a rage, and Moses "reminds" God just who he is and who the people are that God is about to destroy. As far as what I know about the Jewish approach to this passage, this exegesis is absolutely foreign, and it is most certainly foreign to the early Christians. Moses doesn't go up on the mount to teach God. No, Moses goes up on the mount to receive instruction from God (not the other way around). Repentance is not a changing of the mind, but is a reversal of action in the Hebrew (a literal turning around). So to see God's "repentance" in "changing his mind" is just absurd. God didn't change his mind; God did not destroy all of Israel (he relented from his action). The reason I make this distinction between action and mind is that God was going to raise up another Israel in Moses, thus demonstrating that God's will (God's mind) had not been changed. Israel was going to be his elect people (whether they liked it or not). In fact, if you read the Talmud, you will find that when God is striking this covenant with Israel, the Talmudic authors speak of God "raising the mountation" over the heads of Israel (because of an ambiguity in the Hebrew). It was thought that God had gone to numerous peoples and tried to strike a deal, and the only reason why Israel accepted it was that God "raised the mountain" over their heads (in essence, they had no choice).

The other thing that I find most ironic in your exegesis is that you fail to see just how ignorant Moses is. He doesn't understand why God is angry with Israel. He has no idea what they are doing at the foot of the mountain as he is receiving God's covenant for Israel. He really thinks that God has gone off his rocker. You have to wonder, had Moses known what Israel was doing at the foot of the mountain, whether his "prayer" (as you put it) would not be different. If anything, God spares Moses because at the very least Moses is faithful. But let's listen to Moses' reaction to the idolatry of Israel. The context is that Moses is coming down from the mount with Joshua after just having received the Torah of God and after that little exchange between God and Moses: "When Joshua heard the noise of the people shouting, he said to Moses, 'There is the sound of war in the camp,' Moses replied, 'It is not the sound of victory? It is not the sound of defeat? It is the sound of singing that I hear.' When Moses apprached the camp and saw the calf and the dancing, his anger burned and he threw the tablets out of his hands, breaking them to pieces at the foot of the mountain."

Guess what, Moses had "convinced" God not to destroy Isreal, but what he had convinced God not to do was exactly what he himself was about to do. The covenant was broken even before it had been given (Moses smashes the tablets before they are read), and there were some punishments to deal out to those wicked people. God may have relented for Moses (for was it not Moses whom God had brought up to lead his people, whom God himself had appointed against Moses' will?) and now Moses takes up that rage of God and deals out punishment. "Moses saw that the people were running wild and Aaron had let them get out of control and so become a laughingstock to their enemies. So he stood at the entrance to the camp and said, 'Whoever is for the LORD, come to me.' And all the Levites rallied to him. Then he said to them, 'This is what the LORD, the God of Israel, says (where were these words of God first given?): Each man strap a sword to his side. Go back and forth through the camp from one end to the other, each killing his brother and friend and neighbor.' The Levites did as Moses commanded, and that day about three thousand of the people died. Then Moses said, 'You have been set apart to the LORD today, for you were against your own sons and brothers, and he has blessed you this day.'"

Tell me, where was God's turning? It is interesting that after this point Moses must once again ascend the mount to "make atonement" for the sins of the people. Apparently God's wrath was not abated with Moses' ignorant prayer on the mount. Now he could offer a real prayer on behalf of the people and abate God's wrath.

Your interpretation falls apart in the greater context of the scriptures, and thus works good as a "tenderizer" for the scriptures, and allows the scriptures to "taste good" and have a good texture, but it is absolutely void of nutrition. It is really bad exegesis.

From this and many other passages with that Hebrew word relating to God, I have drawn this conclusion: If God was outside of time and saw all the future actions of men, God could never be wrong about predictions. I also believe: If the future actions of men are unknowable because they have not been decided, our all knowing God would not know them because they do not exist. None of them actually exist, so there is nothing to know.

And all of this is based on an anachronistic approach to the scriptures that places Modern concerns on them where such concerns were not to be found among the ancients.

When we read the Bible, God always exists in time. But, time is no restraint to Him like it is to us. We need to rest at times. But He doesn’t. We are growing old. He is always the same it that attribute. Most of us have deadlines to keep and other time responsibilities that are measured by time. With God, time is no burden. I see time as the measure between two events. Since God can control every event, if He so desires, time is never a burden to Him at all. He created the universe. We haven’t even seen the farthest galaxy in this tremendous universe. When God created it, it seems like it was instantaneous. Therefore, I do not believe the future exists until it actually happens.

God isn't just better at knowing the future because God has "known" more of the "knowable" Universe. God isn't just a really good observer. God is the Creator, and as the Creator stands outside of all cause and effect. God is the source of it all, and brings it about through his Son and the Spirit, to ultimately bring praise unto God the Father.

Peace,
Michael

 

[RobE]

Originally Posted by Michael

So, God can do whatever He wants, and it's good by definition?

As long as He is God.

If so God is unjust by His own given standard and therefore a hypocrite.

How so?

God is not the "Do as I say and not as I do." sort of God but is rather the "Be Holy as I am Holy!" sort of God!

The God of the Bible is loving, just and kind and commands us to be like Him! We are not commanded to be capricious and arbitrary!

Where does Michael's statement suggest that God is acting capriciously or in an arbitrary manner?

Your comment is blasphemous. God cannot do anything inconsistent with the way He is right now and remain holy. If you believe otherwise you believe in a god other than that spoken of in the Bible.

Your comment is, however, the logically consistent position drawn from a Calvinistic worldview and it is therefore one of the most powerful arguments against the theology. No such hypocritical god exists. Believing otherwise is idolatry and suggesting that the God of Scripture is such a God is blasphemy of the highest order.

You presuppose much from the statement "So, God can do whatever He wants, and it's good by definition?"

My response to your accusation is that God only wants to do good, but is able to do anything. Remember God is God and is free.

I find it interesting that an Open Theist states "God cannot do anything inconsistent with the way He is right now and remain holy." This would indicate that God is unchangeable and static; not dynamic.

Are we finding ourselves on the other side of the argument?

No blasphemy intended even though apparently taken,
Rob

 

[RobE]

So, there is no standard for good that comes from His nature, it's just whatever God does?

Muz

The God I worship is Holy and the standard for 'good'.

We have something in common,
Rob

 

[Bob Hill]

Seeking answers,

Are you really seeking answers? Your answers seem a trifle arrogant to me.

In Christ,
Bob Hill

 

[Hilston]

When we look at a lot of the material in the O.T., God is limited in His promises to bless when man does not do as He commands.

Of course. That is the language of covenants. God had a high view of His own Word and of the covenants He made with Israel. Anyone in the OT who disregards God's Word is a covenant-breaker. Promises are tied to covenants. Of course, the Open View will naively take such passages and assume Divine Ignorance in the face of the "apparent" contingency. However, by understanding scripture according to the same rules of syntax, grammar and linguistic figures used by the writer and understood by the original audience, such assumptions become patently untenable. So, for every passage a Bob Du Jour wants to cite in support of the Open View, he must invariably sacrifice hermeneutical coherence on the altar of Open-Theist humanism.

Psa 78:41 Yes, again and again they tempted God, and limited the Holy One of Israel.

See what I mean? David understood, and he rightly assumed the thoughtful reader of his words would as well, that the limits were in regard to the blessings of the Old Covenant, not in God's ability.

Even promises that appear to be unconditional may be broken. ...

All Old Covenant promises were conditional.

God said "For I will deliver the inhabitants of the land into your hand, and you shall drive them out before you."

Yup, and Moses understood that as a conditional covenantal pledge, not an unconditional assertion.

God emphasized His promise again and again. ...

Yes, and He implicitly emphasized the conditions thereof.

But, in the book of Joshua, we read these promises did not happen.

Of course; promises of the Old Covenant are conditional. It was how all men understood the cutting of covenants with God, and with other men as well.

God had ample reason to punish Israel.

Of course; they became covenant-breakers. According to the Old Covenant, blessings and curses went hand in glove with covenants and their attending promises. When a covenant was kept, there was blessing. When a covenant was broken, there were curses. Promises were understood as contingent blessings.

What nations did God not drive out? God did not drive out those He said He would drive out. Instead, He would use them to discipline Israel.

Of course; Israel had become covenant breakers. When God said He would drive them out, it was understood by the original audience to be a conditional matter. Since they disobeyed, God used the evil of the nations for His good purposes and the benefit of future New Covenant Israel.

God broke a promise sworn to the fathers of Israel because of disobedience (Num 14:23,30,34).

Note what the Open Theist disease does to the mind. Open Theism must resort to making God into a promise-breaker. It was Israel who broke their covenant with God; God did not break His promise. So instead of blessing (the promise to bless) came curses (the promise to bring calamity).

All of the future is not locked in like most people seem to think. God can change His mind, and He does.

No, God's counsel is immutable. When the Bible describes God as "changing His mind," it is a rich and glorious figure of speech that refers to a change in His actions of special significance. Search and see. In every case it is so.

I do agree with godrulz, that God is in total control.

Does God then have total control of your will? Does God have total control of the actions of the wicked?

He allows man to cause problems.

"Allowing" is not the same as "controlling." Unsettled Theists irrationally want to have it both ways. They want a God who is in total control, but One does not control evil. Unsettled Theists also want a God who is infinite, yet also bound by time. Either God is in total control, and therefore controls evil, or He is not in total control. How long halt ye between two opinions? Either God is in total control and infinite or He is neither.

God changes His program as He sees fit when mankind disobeys.

The Unsettled Theist God is a Trial-And-Error-Let's-See-If-This-Works sort of God. Unsettled Theism, in order to raise man up and to denigrate their Judge, strikes at the very heart of what defines God as God.

Heb 6:17 Wherein God, willing more abundantly to shew unto the heirs of promise the immutability of his counsel, confirmed it by an oath: 18 That by two immutable things, in which it was impossible for God to lie, we might have a strong consolation, who have fled for refuge to lay hold upon the hope set before us:​

God does not change His plans or decrees. But He did change His actions (i.e. changed His "mind") toward disobedient Israel in the Kingdom dispensation, all in perfect accordance with His decreed purposes.

At one time I actually held to the view that God knew all of the future until I realized that I had no biblical basis for believing that.

After one allows the existential humanism of the Unsettled View to infect and commandeer the mental faculties, giving oneself completely over to its Less-Than-God Theology, one begins to summarily dismiss all passages that indicate God's unchangeable and absolute power, authority, presence, His total and meticulous control, exhaustive knowledge of all things past, present and future, and His prerogative to decree evil for His purposes. Essentially, the Open View proponent turns God into a bad accountant Who doesn't know when to cut His losses, which reduces Him to a nail-biting, pathetic and insecure Loser Who, despite everything He does for them, just can't get people to like Him

I came to understand that the whole concept of God outside of time and seeing all things as an eternal now was from Greek philosophy and, in modern times, from the theory of relativity.

Even a broken clock is right twice a day. Gee, where have I heard that before?

Now, I understand from the Bible that God can know the future.

How can He know what doesn't yet exist?

But the Bible shows us when He does. He determines it. When He determines it, He makes it happen. Therefore, He can know that it will happen, but that does not mean that He knows it because He looks into the future to know it.

God has determined (past tense) every detail of the future, and He doesn't know the future merely because He "looked into the future," but because He decided in advance exactly, in every meticulous detail, what will inexorably happen.

The Hebrew word nacham, repent, is used in the Bible in reference to God over 20 times. The passage that really affected me greatly was found in Deuteronomy, but now, I prefer the passage in Exodus where it shows God repented of stated harm because of Moses' prayer. Ex 32:9-14 And the LORD said to Moses, "I have seen this people, and indeed it is a stiff-necked people! 10 Now therefore, let Me alone, that My wrath may burn hot against them and I may consume them. And I will make of you a great nation." 11 Then Moses pleaded with the LORD his God, and said: "LORD, why does Your wrath burn hot against Your people whom You have brought out of the land of Egypt with great power and with a mighty hand? 12 Why should the Egyptians speak, and say, 'He brought them out to harm them, to kill them in the mountains, and to consume them from the face of the earth'? Turn from Your fierce wrath, and repent from this harm to Your people. 13 Remember Abraham, Isaac, and Israel, Your servants, to whom You swore by Your own self, and said to them, 'I will multiply your descendants as the stars of heaven; and all this land that I have spoken of I give to your descendants, and they shall inherit it forever.'" 14 So the LORD repented from the harm which He said He would do to His people.

Notice the implications of the Unsettled View in light of this passage:

1. God needs to actually look in order to see what's going on;
2. God does not like to be interrupted when He is angry;
3. When God is angry, He needs the human to leave Him alone;
4. God needs a human to calm Him down and to talk sense to Him;
5. God needs a human to twist His arm by taunting Him and chiding Him for His impetuousness;
6. God needs a human to remind Him of His covenantal promises that He swore to Israel;

From this and many other passages with that Hebrew word relating to God, I have drawn this conclusion: If God was outside of time and saw all the future actions of men, God could never be wrong about predictions.

This is a correct conclusion.

I also believe: If the future actions of men are unknowable because they have not been decided, our all knowing God would not know them because they do not exist. None of them actually exist, so there is nothing to know.

Bob says that there is nothing for God to know about the future actions of men, yet the Bible says that God's determinate counsel and knowledge of the future delivered Christ into the hands of evil men to be tortured and executed (Act 2:23, Isa 53).

When we read the Bible, God always exists in time.

The key component to that sentence is "we." We are creatures bound by time. We cannot fathom timelessness. Therefore God communicates to finite, time-bound man in finite, time-bound terms.

But, time is no restraint to Him like it is to us. We need to rest at times. But He doesn't. We are growing old. He is always the same it that attribute. Most of us have deadlines to keep and other time responsibilities that are measured by time. With God, time is no burden.

Notice the persistent humanism that pervades the mind of the Unsettled Theist. They actually measure God by themselves and evaluate Him against human standards. They acknowledge that man is created in His image, but by trying to understand God according to man's experience, they re-create God in the image of man. God is just a big, super human with special powers, right out of the comic books. He doesn't need to sleep! He doesn't age! This is the Open Theist's view of God:Look! Up in the Sky! It's sleepless man! It's an ageless man! It's God!"

I see time as the measure between two events.

Time is the measure of what between two events?

Since God can control every event, if He so desires, time is never a burden to Him at all.

Can God control mental events? Was time a burden for the Open Theist God when Jesus told Judas to act quickly? Why would the Unsettled God bother to do that if time were not a burden to Him?

He created the universe.

Except time. Time, although part of the universe, is more ultimate than God, according to the Open View.

We haven't even seen the farthest galaxy in this tremendous universe. When God created it, it seems like it was instantaneous. Therefore, I do not believe the future exists until it actually happens.

Yet John the Revelator was able to see visions of the actual future. A future that, according to Unsettled Theists, does not exist. Not only did John see visions of the future, but he saw ten kings give their power to the Beast (Rev 17:13). Then, just four verses later, he sees God putting it "in their hearts, to do His will, and to agree, giving their kingdom unto the Beast until the Word of God be fulfilled" (Rev 17:17).

Hypocrite, moron, jackass, liar and tool(shed),
Jim

 

[Philetus]

Seekinganswers,
OVT sees God as involved, NOT in process: a God so capable He can risk being in the wold without in anyway compromising His power or His character. Open View Theism is not Process Theology. Get over it.


You sound more like a deist than a theist. You remove God so far from His creation and creatures that even though everything is “out of him, and through him, and unto him” any practical allocations are diminished and the "God we live and move and have our being," in couldn’t be involved if he wanted to. God as you describe him couldn’t have had that conversation with Moses that you build your case on in the above post. He is too far gone. Be careful that your reaction to Process Theology doesn’t send you to another place and time.

These two verses you have posted are so informative of the Open View of the future! They speak first of the past and then of the present: God created and is still personally involved! And regardless what may happen in our immediate future, ALL things will return to God. One can universalize or trivialize, but that doesn’t make the realities of living in and for Christ any less than they are. Experiencing and representing Jesus in the world is not a product of modern or post-modern or Greek thought. It is the effect of living in and having the Holy Spirit dwell in us.

Christ IN you the HOPE of glory,
Philetus​

 

[Hilston]

OVT sees God as involved ...

Please give me one example in which knew beyond any reasonable doubt God was truly involved in something in your life.

God created and is still personally involved!

How? What is God doing right now? How is He involved? Please be specific.

Thanks,
H,M, JA, L & T(S),
Jim

 

[Daniel50]

Do you have any idea about Gothic Christain and their culture?
Who Gothic Christian?

 

[seekinganswers]

Seeking answers,

Are you really seeking answers? Your answers seem a trifle arrogant to me.

In Christ,
Bob Hill

This is a good way of ignoring the points that I raised, though it seems to be more in jest than in seriousness. I hope that you will address the issues I raised about your exegetical approach to the Exodus passage.

Do understand that I am not attacking you. I have no doubt that you are very capable within the scriptural narrative. But as far as your exegetical approach to this passage is concerned I find it lacking.

That said, to seek answers for me has nothing to do with getting the cheat sheet for the test. Our understanding of "seeking answers" has been shaped by the formation we received in our schooling. There is an answer to every question is what we are taught (because we are only taught the questions to which the answers are already "known"). For me, sometimes the answer is being able to ask the right questions (whether they have answers or not) and the answers to the questions come not by appealing to experts but through hard work and perseverance.

My arrogance comes not through a blatant attack on you, but because I have had much experience with those who abuse these passages in order to understand God. The God I know is revealed in Christ, and the God I see in Christ is not open because in Christ God brings all of Creation from the kephale to telos. God is outside of the head and the purpose of the Creation, and yet God enwraps the Creation within Godself.

Peace,
Michael

 

[seekinganswers]

OVT sees God as involved, NOT in process: a God so capable He can risk being in the wold without in anyway compromising His power or His character. Open View Theism is not Process Theology. Get over it.

Yet God is involved in a way in which God experiences the Creation (in other words, God's experience is shaped by Creation). Whether you like it or not, the open view of God cannot avoid a God in process. Now you might limit that process to the highest degree, but the reality is that God is in process with the Open view. If God "knows" the Creation through Gods "senses" (whatever that would mean) than God is in process, for God finds himself within the series of cause and effect. Creation can become a cause that draws out an effect within God (and to a limited degree the Creation manipulates God). Now you can call this the "involved" God, but the reality is that God becomes within this order just another actor on the stage. The stage is driving the events of the Creation, and both God and humanity are along for the ride (though God might have a really good "knowledge" of the stage). You need to realize just how closely Process Theology and Open Theism are related. The proof-texts of the Process Theologians are the same proof texts for the Open Theists.

You sound more like a deist than a theist. You remove God so far from His creation and creatures that even though everything is “out of him, and through him, and unto him” any practical allocations are diminished and the "God we live and move and have our being," in couldn’t be involved if he wanted to. God as you describe him couldn’t have had that conversation with Moses that you build your case on in the above post. He is too far gone. Be careful that your reaction to Process Theology doesn’t send you to another place and time.

You have no idea what a deist is. Those statements that I gave you are ones that Paul uses in his description of God to the Athenians, and the other in his letter to the Romans. It is not my own concoction; it right out of the scriptures. A deist would want nothing to do with my statements, because a deist sees a God who sets things into motion and lets them run on their own (which is in fact much closer to the Open Theist view, where God creates laws of the Universe that are able to sustain the universe without God's presence. The statements I have quoted understand that the universe is contingent upon God, and that in God the universe consists. Without God there is no world.

Let us take a closer look at these passages. The first comes from Paul's evangelistic endeavor with the Athenians. Its local context is a small creedo concerning God (which may include elements from early Christian creeds and maybe some Jewish ties as well) found in Acts 17:24-28. "The God who made the world and everything in it is the Lord of heaven and earth and does not live in temples built by hands. And he is not served by human hands, as if he needed anything, because he himself gives all men life and breath and everything else. From one man he made every nation of men, that they should inhabit the whole earth; and he determined the times set for them and the exact places where they should live. God did this so that men would seek him and perhaps reach out 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 some of your own poets have said, 'We are his offspring.'" So, as asked you before, how on earth are you going to reconcile this with your open view of God? It is quite impossible. This is what Paul has to say to Greek listeners (to people who are hearing this message for the first time). His take on God is far from open.

The second passage comes from Romans (though it is repeated in similar terms throughout the New Testament). It comes in a Doxological proclamation of God. Paul states, "Oh, the depth of the riches of wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable his judgments, and his paths beyond tracing out! Who has known the mind of the Lord? Or who had been his counselor? Who has ever given to God that God should repay him? For from him and through him and to him are all things. To him be the glory forever! Amen." Once again I find this very difficult to reconcile with the open view. God is not changing in this. God is the God in whom the whole of Creation is grounded, anchored to him in the beginning and as he brings the Creation to its proper telos.

These two verses you have posted are so informative of the Open View of the future! They speak first of the past and then of the present: God created and is still personally involved! And regardless what may happen in our immediate future, ALL things will return to God. One can universalize or trivialize, but that doesn’t make the realities of living in and for Christ any less than they are. Experiencing and representing Jesus in the world is not a product of modern or post-modern or Greek thought. It is the effect of living in and having the Holy Spirit dwell in us.

This is not what Paul is stating. Paul's statement is much more profound. God doesn't wait for the eschaton to happen. God has already begun the eschaton in Christ, meaning that right now all of Creation is subdued. The age to come is here already. It may seem that there remain enemies of God, but in fact God has defeated them all. Satan has fallen on his own sword, and the powers that be are on the run. In fact, in Colosians Paul states that God in Christ has "disarmed the powers and authorities," and has "made a public spectacle of them, triumphing over them by the cross" [he has paraded them as the Roman army did to its enemies when they had won the battle] (Col 2:15). God is the "Father of all, who is over all things and through all things and in all things." (Eph. 4:6). So the enemies are no more. And where is this witnessed? Within the ekklesia, which is the gathering of those who take seriously the words of Christ and live them out in a world that remains hostile to both Christ and his words. We don't "experience" Christ and "represent" Christ to this world, we are Christ in this world (the very body of Christ). The world experiences and witnesses Christ in us, in our gathering (and if our gathering is not faithful, the world has a very poor image of Christ).

All things are not waiting to return to God; in Christ God has already brought them near (in fact, "God is not far from any one of us").

Peace,
Michael

 

[Philetus]

Quote:
Originally Posted by Philetus

OVT sees God as involved ...

Hilston: Please give me one example in which knew beyond any reasonable doubt God was truly involved in something in your life.

You wouldn’t understand. If you can’t hear God ... you won’t hear me even if I told you God raised the dead. Have you ‘received’ the Holy Spirit since you believed? Ever hear of the fruit of the Spirit? Maybe you have not because you ask not or you ask for the wrong things or with the wrong motives. I have asked God to provide and do things for His own name’s sake ... and God has done them. I have also asked for the wrong things with wrong motives and been ignored. It isn’t either/or, it’s learning to walk in the Spirit. It is a cooperative venture that shapes the future.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Philetus

God created and is still personally involved!

Hilston: How? What is God doing right now? How is He involved? Please be specific.
Thanks,
H,M, JA, L & T(S),
Jim

Inspiring both the will and the deed: to love you and pray for you and accept you as a fellow Jackass who needs Christ in his life as much and I do. (See above.)

Your humble Jackass,
Philetus; Phd. HM, L&Ts.​