ARCHIVE: Open Theism part 1
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elected4ever
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This is true. Clete really isn't all that bad. He has an excellent understanding of human reasoning. He just misapplies his human reasoning to spiritual matters. Just because we are finite in our thinking processes does not mean that God is. I just think he has gone to far in his assessment of Open Theism just as the Calvinist has gone to for in their closed theism. Two wrongs don't make a right.Philetus said:
elected4ever said:
Open Theism affirms that God's intelligence is vast and infinite. He is wise, intelligent, and omniscient. We differ on the nature of possible objects of knowledge due to the type of creation He chose to actualize (free will agents vs determinism).
God is not finite in any sense. Finite godism is Process theology, not biblical Open Theism (about the openness of God's creation, not whether or not He is omniscient...He is).
E4e,elected4ever said:
This is perhaps the most reasonable post you've posted that I can remember! :noway:
Can you establish that simple logic, the sort that says that two truths cannot be mutually exclusive or that something cannot be both A and not A at the same time and in the same respect, does not apply to spiritual matters?
How would you propose that we know anything about spiritual matters if sound reason does not apply?
Resting in Him,
Clete
elected4ever
New member
Clete, I do not believe what I believe because of human logic. Before I believed what I believe, what I believe now was illogical in terms of my background and past learning experiences. I was never thought this by anyone on planet earth. As a matter of fact I was thought much as you were. I have posted my experience before. You and others ridiculed that experience much as I had done it times past to other people and you did not believe me then and you would not believe me now. So why discuss it. All I can say is that the truths that I address are logical but not on human terms.Clete said:
elected4ever
New member
I do not think it wise to be so devoted to one school of though that truth contained in another should be discarded. That which is in error in each school should however be challenged. I hope I have done that and i hope I have grown in the process.
Not to be overly sarcastic here but umm, no kidding! :shocked:elected4ever said:
It is still illogical but lets leave that aside for the moment and assume that your theology is correct. Do you believe that your theology was actually illogical or simply that you didn't get it?
Do you understand the difference?
I really don't care about your experience. It is entirely irrelevant to the issue. The truth is true regardless of one's experience concerning it, wouldn't you agree?
What is germane to the issue is this notion of something being "logical but not on human terms". What does that mean? When I speak of logic, I am not talking about popular opinion or some vaguely defined notion of what "most people accept as truth" or what the average person might think "makes sense to him" or any other such thing. When I speak of logic I am talking strictly about that which conforms to the three laws of logic, which are as follows...
1. The law of identity states that if any statement is true, then it is true; or, every proposition implies itself: A implies A.
2. The law of excluded middle states that everything must either be or not be; or, everything is A or not-A.
3. The law of contradiction states that no statement can be both true and false; or, A and not-A is a contradiction and always false: thus, not both A and not-A.
2. The law of excluded middle states that everything must either be or not be; or, everything is A or not-A.
3. The law of contradiction states that no statement can be both true and false; or, A and not-A is a contradiction and always false: thus, not both A and not-A.
Nothing that is true, whether spiritual, theological, scientific, mathematical or whatever, can be in conflict with these laws, and any truth claim that is in conflict with any of these laws is false by definition. This is not HUMAN logic but simply logic. There is only one kind of logic (leaving aside for "forms" of logic that one might find in certain fields of mathematics and computer science - none of which describe anything real while violating any of the three laws). The idea of human logic which stands opposed to some other higher form of logic is simply irrational. Simply put, there is no higher form of logic than that which is described by the three laws given above. Any so called logic that does not meat that standard might be called human logic (and in fact is by the Bible) but it is in fact not really logic at all.
I agree completely! That which is true is true - period. It makes no difference what "school of thought" an idea is born out of. If it is true then it should be accepted as such because no truth can ever conflict with logic and thus could never conflict with a rightly understood Christian worldview.
Resting in Him,
Clete
elected4ever
New member
CLETE
May I submit that today's christian world view is illogical on its face and therefore untrue.
Today's Christian Worldview?elected4ever said:
What does that mean?
There is but one correct worldview e4e. ONE. It's the same worldview that was true yesterday and it will continue to be true tomorrow. What in the world are you talking about?
And why do you want to shift the focus here? Please answer my questions from my previous posts...
Can you establish that simple logic, the sort that says that two truths cannot be mutually exclusive or that something cannot be both A and not A at the same time and in the same respect, does not apply to spiritual matters?
How would you propose that we know anything about spiritual matters if sound reason does not apply?
Resting in Him,
Clete
lee_merrill
New member
Hi everyone,
Surely God knew that removing the hedge meant the devil would attack, so indeed, even according to the Open Theists, God had agency in what happened to Job.
Unless unwitting blasphemy is a sin, and indeed, it is (1 Tim. 1:12, Paul had to be forgiven, for this sin).
And I ask again and again which grammar points this out as a known phrase people would understand in another way, as in “it’s raining buckets.” We can’t just say “it’s a figure of speech” without grammatical warrant.
I could just as well say “Satan struck Job” is a figure of speech, and put another meaning there…
And yet even Elihu spoke of God doing this, the context in fact supports the claim that God was the primary agent here, from first to last, Scripture says Job said this without sinning, Scripture says this at the end, everyone agrees that this is ultimately God’s hand, and God does not contradict this.
The Lord will strike you with wasting disease, with fever and inflammation, with scorching heat and drought, with blight and mildew, which will plague you until you perish (Dt. 28:22).
And this and many other verses clearly say God afflicts people.
The claim is that God does not afflict people, especially innocent people, and this was just the argument of Job’s friends, who were worse off than Job, for their error was more serious.
They said God afflicted Job for his sin, and we read that 1) Job was righteous and 2) God brought this trouble on him.
So their sin was saying that God does not afflict innocent people, and Scripture clearly speaks of this, and to deny this, is unconscionable.
Job 23:10 But he knows the way that I take; when he has tested me, I will come forth as gold.
Zechariah 13:9 This third I will bring into the fire; I [note: “I”] will refine them like silver and test them like gold. They will call on my name and I will answer them; I will say, 'They are my people,' and they will say, 'The Lord is our God.'
I leave off here, this is only a sample (for example, see below)...
Matthew 14:14 When Jesus landed and saw a large crowd, he had compassion on them and healed their sick.
Job 33:29-30 God does all these things to a man-- twice, even three times--to turn back his soul from the pit, that the light of life may shine on him.
Job 36:8-10 But if men are bound in chains, held fast by cords of affliction, he tells them what they have done-- that they have sinned arrogantly. He makes them listen to correction and commands them to repent of their evil.
Job 36:17 But now you are laden with the judgment due the wicked; judgment and justice have taken hold of you.
Philetus: "To paraphrase : God is just. He uses trouble to bring a man back from sin, when he sins. He holds them to their sins. God does not bring these upon righteous. Job said God did. I say he wouldn't, but because Job said that he does, he had now sinned and had taken on the judgement due those who had sinned."
Then what was Job's judgment? That would be my question here, and who was judging Job, according to Elihu?
Philetus: "Note the bolded words. Elihu is saying 'Job, you are saying I am innocent, yet God brings disaster on me! Listen to your unrighteous tongue! God isn't like man to do that to someone.' Don't you see that lee?"
No, I don't, because Elihu didn't say that! What did he actually say?
"God is greater than man," this is not what you had him saying here, it would seem...
9 For he has said, ‘It profits a man nothing that he should delight in God.’
Philetus: "Job was out of his mind in sorrow, Lee! He was saying terrible things about God, and you agree with them, you agree that God did this to him?"
Yet this is not the text, you see. Job says "It was no profit for me to serve God." That is different than reading "God did this to me."
You are rewriting the passage here, sad to say, again and again, and this is serious, it is sinning.
Job 33:29-30 God does all these things to a man-- twice, even three times--to turn back his soul from the pit, that the light of life may shine on him.
Job 36:8-10 But if men are bound in chains, held fast by cords of affliction, he tells them what they have done-- that they have sinned arrogantly. He makes them listen to correction and commands them to repent of their evil.
Job 36:17 But now you are laden with the judgment due the wicked; judgment and justice have taken hold of you.
Clearly Elihu is saying God struck Job.
Also, this you did not respond to, other than asking me if I knew the meaning of innocent:
John 18:11 “Shall I not drink the cup the Father has given me?"
And there are many examples of this, Job among them, you have not yet explained to me what “the trouble the Lord had brought on him” means. Similarly, we see this in Ezekiel:
Ezekiel 21:3-6 This is what the Lord says: “I am against you. I will draw my sword from its scabbard and cut off from you both the righteous and the wicked. Because I am going to cut off the righteous and the wicked, my sword will be unsheathed against everyone from south to north. Then all people will know that I the Lord have drawn my sword from its scabbard; it will not return again.” Therefore groan, son of man! Groan before them with broken heart and bitter grief.
And these verses here also show that God does use and cause sinful acts for good purposes:
2 Samuel 7:14 I will be his father, and he will be my son. When he does wrong, I will punish him with the rod of men, with floggings inflicted by men.
Amos 3:6 When a trumpet sounds in a city, do not the people tremble? When disaster comes to a city, has not the Lord caused it?
Isaiah 10:16-17 Does the ax raise itself above him who swings it, or the saw boast against him who uses it? As if a rod were to wield him who lifts it up, or a club brandish him who is not wood! Isaiah Therefore, the Lord, the Lord Almighty, will send a wasting disease upon his sturdy warriors...
And my reply again is this:
Job 42:11 They comforted and consoled him over all the trouble the Lord had brought upon him…
This is a different statement than “God rebuilt Job's fortune because of the testing,” though certainly this latter statement is true, we can’t say a phrase is a figure of speech and rewrite it like this, for it does not contract other verses (to strike a cue ball so it pockets the nine, the cue ball is a secondary cause, and you are the primary cause), and a main point does not erase other points in the passage, and “the trouble the Lord brought on him”, what grammar says this is a figure of speech people would recognize as meaning “rebuilt Job's fortune because of the testing”?
Blessings,
Lee
Here are some points that went by the board:Clete said:
Surely God knew that removing the hedge meant the devil would attack, so indeed, even according to the Open Theists, God had agency in what happened to Job.
Unless unwitting blasphemy is a sin, and indeed, it is (1 Tim. 1:12, Paul had to be forgiven, for this sin).
And I ask again and again which grammar points this out as a known phrase people would understand in another way, as in “it’s raining buckets.” We can’t just say “it’s a figure of speech” without grammatical warrant.
I could just as well say “Satan struck Job” is a figure of speech, and put another meaning there…
And yet even Elihu spoke of God doing this, the context in fact supports the claim that God was the primary agent here, from first to last, Scripture says Job said this without sinning, Scripture says this at the end, everyone agrees that this is ultimately God’s hand, and God does not contradict this.
The Lord will strike you with wasting disease, with fever and inflammation, with scorching heat and drought, with blight and mildew, which will plague you until you perish (Dt. 28:22).
And this and many other verses clearly say God afflicts people.
The claim is that God does not afflict people, especially innocent people, and this was just the argument of Job’s friends, who were worse off than Job, for their error was more serious.
They said God afflicted Job for his sin, and we read that 1) Job was righteous and 2) God brought this trouble on him.
So their sin was saying that God does not afflict innocent people, and Scripture clearly speaks of this, and to deny this, is unconscionable.
Job 23:10 But he knows the way that I take; when he has tested me, I will come forth as gold.
Zechariah 13:9 This third I will bring into the fire; I [note: “I”] will refine them like silver and test them like gold. They will call on my name and I will answer them; I will say, 'They are my people,' and they will say, 'The Lord is our God.'
I leave off here, this is only a sample (for example, see below)...
The alternative then being to say it’s a figure of speech (it’s not) and rewrite the verse? That’s simply a travesty.Clete said:
And I ask you again what you mean by a quantitative attribute, this I do not recall that you replied to. You see, every attribute of God involves both a quality and a quantity.
Do you know, Clete, I also believe God is just and kind and loving and good, and that is why he heals people.
Matthew 14:14 When Jesus landed and saw a large crowd, he had compassion on them and healed their sick.
Do you now agree then, that God does afflict people at times?Philetus said:
Actually, I think “time to move on” indicates just this, and you now need to address the points left unanswered above that I reviewed for Clete.
And my response was, and is, as follows:
Job 33:29-30 God does all these things to a man-- twice, even three times--to turn back his soul from the pit, that the light of life may shine on him.
Job 36:8-10 But if men are bound in chains, held fast by cords of affliction, he tells them what they have done-- that they have sinned arrogantly. He makes them listen to correction and commands them to repent of their evil.
Job 36:17 But now you are laden with the judgment due the wicked; judgment and justice have taken hold of you.
Philetus: "To paraphrase : God is just. He uses trouble to bring a man back from sin, when he sins. He holds them to their sins. God does not bring these upon righteous. Job said God did. I say he wouldn't, but because Job said that he does, he had now sinned and had taken on the judgement due those who had sinned."
Then what was Job's judgment? That would be my question here, and who was judging Job, according to Elihu?
Philetus: "Note the bolded words. Elihu is saying 'Job, you are saying I am innocent, yet God brings disaster on me! Listen to your unrighteous tongue! God isn't like man to do that to someone.' Don't you see that lee?"
No, I don't, because Elihu didn't say that! What did he actually say?
"God is greater than man," this is not what you had him saying here, it would seem...
9 For he has said, ‘It profits a man nothing that he should delight in God.’
Philetus: "Job was out of his mind in sorrow, Lee! He was saying terrible things about God, and you agree with them, you agree that God did this to him?"
Yet this is not the text, you see. Job says "It was no profit for me to serve God." That is different than reading "God did this to me."
You are rewriting the passage here, sad to say, again and again, and this is serious, it is sinning.
Job 33:29-30 God does all these things to a man-- twice, even three times--to turn back his soul from the pit, that the light of life may shine on him.
Job 36:8-10 But if men are bound in chains, held fast by cords of affliction, he tells them what they have done-- that they have sinned arrogantly. He makes them listen to correction and commands them to repent of their evil.
Job 36:17 But now you are laden with the judgment due the wicked; judgment and justice have taken hold of you.
Clearly Elihu is saying God struck Job.
Also, this you did not respond to, other than asking me if I knew the meaning of innocent:
Then did God not bring the cross on Jesus?
John 18:11 “Shall I not drink the cup the Father has given me?"
And there are many examples of this, Job among them, you have not yet explained to me what “the trouble the Lord had brought on him” means. Similarly, we see this in Ezekiel:
Ezekiel 21:3-6 This is what the Lord says: “I am against you. I will draw my sword from its scabbard and cut off from you both the righteous and the wicked. Because I am going to cut off the righteous and the wicked, my sword will be unsheathed against everyone from south to north. Then all people will know that I the Lord have drawn my sword from its scabbard; it will not return again.” Therefore groan, son of man! Groan before them with broken heart and bitter grief.
And these verses here also show that God does use and cause sinful acts for good purposes:
2 Samuel 7:14 I will be his father, and he will be my son. When he does wrong, I will punish him with the rod of men, with floggings inflicted by men.
Amos 3:6 When a trumpet sounds in a city, do not the people tremble? When disaster comes to a city, has not the Lord caused it?
Isaiah 10:16-17 Does the ax raise itself above him who swings it, or the saw boast against him who uses it? As if a rod were to wield him who lifts it up, or a club brandish him who is not wood! Isaiah Therefore, the Lord, the Lord Almighty, will send a wasting disease upon his sturdy warriors...
And my reply again is this:
Job 42:11 They comforted and consoled him over all the trouble the Lord had brought upon him…
This is a different statement than “God rebuilt Job's fortune because of the testing,” though certainly this latter statement is true, we can’t say a phrase is a figure of speech and rewrite it like this, for it does not contract other verses (to strike a cue ball so it pockets the nine, the cue ball is a secondary cause, and you are the primary cause), and a main point does not erase other points in the passage, and “the trouble the Lord brought on him”, what grammar says this is a figure of speech people would recognize as meaning “rebuilt Job's fortune because of the testing”?
Certainly not, but he did have agency in what happened, right?
Blessings,
Lee
elected4ever
New member
Clete, you said,"I agree completely! That which is true is true - period. It makes no difference what "school of thought" an idea is born out of. If it is true then it should be accepted as such because no truth can ever conflict with logic and thus could never conflict with a rightly understood Christian worldview." You are the one who injected the christian world view. not me. The christian world view is called Christianity. The christian religion if you will. The christian religion will send you to hell. The christian religion is of man. The christian religion holds such divergent views that all cannot be right. That is your problem, Clete. The christian world view, as you put it, saves no one. Whether it is properly understood or not.Clete said:Today's Christian Worldview?
What does that mean?
There is but one correct worldview e4e. ONE. It's the same worldview that was true yesterday and it will continue to be true tomorrow. What in the world are you talking about?
And why do you want to shift the focus here? Please answer my questions from my previous posts...
Can you establish that simple logic, the sort that says that two truths cannot be mutually exclusive or that something cannot be both A and not A at the same time and in the same respect, does not apply to spiritual matters?
How would you propose that we know anything about spiritual matters if sound reason does not apply?
Resting in Him,
Clete
Philetus
New member
lee_merrill said:
Where in the world did I say any of this?:
LEE, before you type another word, show from where you are quoting me.
Where did these statement come from?
Sorry lee, you will not be joining us for double jeopardy. I really hate to do this but this post is way out of line, even for you. Sport is fine. But if you can't show me ... misquoting will cost you.
elected4ever
New member
like salt in your open wound.godrulz said:
[snip all the irrelivent repetition of your position]
HOW MUCH power God and HOW MUCH control He has over the things that happen in the universe is are quantitative attributes.
WHY God does what He does (i.e. His righteous character) or HOW WELL He does what He does (i.e. His wisdom) are qualitative attributes.
You for some unknown reason want to equate the two as though they are equally important but the Bible explicitly states that God's power is established on the foundation of His righteousness and thus when we come to a passage which forces us to make a choice about which we are going to give precedence too, the Bible teaches us to give God's quality the superior position. And that is sort of a no-brainer anyway isn't it? Isn't just intuitive that quality trumps quantity? Isn't that the principle behind pretty much the entire book of Proverbs? (Prov. 3:13-15)
Resting in Him,
Clete
P.S. Lee, Respond to my posts in a separate post, please. It isn't hard. It simply amounts to punching the "Post Reply" button one extra time. Everything else is a matter of cut and paste. There is no reason to force us all to edit your single all inclusive posts in order to respond.
Thanks!
It is not a formal "figure of speech" like 'hyperbole' or 'metaphor' or something like that but it is what one might call a “manner of speaking” and certainly is not woodenly literal and the only reason to insist otherwise is to preserve a pet doctrine and/or to ignore sound Biblical hermeneutics and the plain meaning of the text. In fact, the only reason that such wooden literalism here is even thinkable in your case is because you define God's righteousness in the context of His power and control over everything that happens instead of the other way around.lee_merrill said:
A quantitative attribute has to with quantity and a qualitative attribute has to do with quality.
HOW MUCH power God and HOW MUCH control He has over the things that happen in the universe is are quantitative attributes.
WHY God does what He does (i.e. His righteous character) or HOW WELL He does what He does (i.e. His wisdom) are qualitative attributes.
You for some unknown reason want to equate the two as though they are equally important but the Bible explicitly states that God's power is established on the foundation of His righteousness and thus when we come to a passage which forces us to make a choice about which we are going to give precedence too, the Bible teaches us to give God's quality the superior position. And that is sort of a no-brainer anyway isn't it? Isn't just intuitive that quality trumps quantity? Isn't that the principle behind pretty much the entire book of Proverbs? (Prov. 3:13-15)
Ignoring the off topic remark about (physical) healing, which we both know God is not doing(whether you admit it or not) in this age of grace (2 Corinthians 12:9), of course you believe God is just and kind and loving and good! That isn't the point! The point is that when you read the Bible, all of these qualitative attributes take a back seat to God's omnipotence, omniscience, omnipresence, providence, etc. I doubt that you do this intentionally or consciously but that is what you do. If you didn't, you would be an open theist.
Resting in Him,
Clete
P.S. Lee, Respond to my posts in a separate post, please. It isn't hard. It simply amounts to punching the "Post Reply" button one extra time. Everything else is a matter of cut and paste. There is no reason to force us all to edit your single all inclusive posts in order to respond.
Thanks!
Would you please slow down and at least TRY to understand what I am saying before jumping to these simply stupid conclusions! Do you really believe that I am this much of a moron? I am going to explain this one last time and then I will expect you to respond directly to the questions I've asked you.elected4ever said:
There is but one world view that is true. ONE! Not fifty, not ten, not thirteen thousand – ONE! I suspect that there is not a single living person this side of heaven who's beliefs line up perfectly with this single absolutely true worldview but that does not change the fact that the universe is as it is and whether anyone at all understands the way it is, it remains just as it is in spite of such universal ignorance. But I am firmly convinced that anyone who we might find who happened to hold to this perfectly correct worldview would call himself a Christian just as you an I do because he would believe that Jesus is the Creator God who became a man and died for sinners and rose from the dead three days later. Thus the correct worldview, whatever it actually entails in detail, IS A CHRISTIAN WORLDVIEW! This is what I'm talking about when I say something like "the Christian worldview is the only correct worldview".
GET IT?
Now, I ask you again....
Can you establish that simple logic, the sort that says that two truths cannot be mutually exclusive or that something cannot be both A and not A at the same time and in the same respect, does not apply to spiritual matters?
How would you propose that we know anything about spiritual matters if sound reason does not apply?
Why do you not want to answer these questions? Are they not honest questions? Do they not flow logically from your previously stated position? I don't understand why you are ignoring them.
Resting in Him,
Clete
elected4ever
New member
The very fact that we are who we are in Christ proves a truth in the spiritual world that is not who we are on earth.Clete said:
On earth we are viewed by man as finite, sinful creatures. The christian world view is the same. This world view seems to be verified at every turn. We, as Christians, have done unspeakable things to others of differing beliefs and even to one another. We as Christians have at times done unmentionable things to our own persons. So, by the logic of the finite creations, we have concluded that Christians are indeed sinners but I submit that this logic, as sound as it appears is totally illogical in the Spirit world. Because we believe the logic of the finite creation we have believed that we have no choice but to sin. So, the evil things of the world, we do to our selves and to others. We simple do not believe the simple logic of the Spirit that says that we have become the righteousness of God, born of the seed of God and that we are as Jesus is. Such is the failure of finite human logic.
Your problem is that you do not understand what logic is.elected4ever said:
THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS "HUMAN LOGIC"!!!!
You can call some line of thinking that if you like but by doing so what you are saying is that the line of thinking is not actually logical at all. Nothing you said about the Christian doctrine of our rigteousness before Christ in spite of the sin that is within our flesh is not illogical in the slightest degree. The only thing you said in the above paragraph that is illogical is when you suggested that there is some logical disparity between what is true of us spiritually and what is true of us in the flesh. There is no such logical disparity.
The facts are these...
1. We have been declared righteous in Christ.
2. We sin virtually daily in our flesh.
These are not contradictory in any fashion. The law of contradiction states that two opposing claims cannot both be true at the same time AND IN THE SAME RESPECT. The two truths in question here are about two different aspects of the Christian life (spirit vs. flesh) and thus there is no logical contradiction.
If you want to present more such "contradictions" I would be happy to point out how they are not irrational according to the three laws of logic. Nothing that is true, whether spiritual or otherwise, could ever be irrational because to be irrational is to be false and the truth is not false.
Resting in Him,
Clete
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