ARCHIVE: Open Theism part 1
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Lonster said:
Omnipotence is not limited by not being able to do self-contradictory things. God cannot create a square circle or make uncreated created beings (He alone is uncreated). He cannot make 2+2=4 and 24 at the same time. These are logical absurdities, not limitations or possibilities for God.
Likewise, exhaustive foreknowledge of future free will contingencies is an absurdity (cannot have cake and eat it too), not a limitation on omniscience.
Bob Hill
TOL Subscriber
God is free to determine somethings will happen in the future according to His will. When He does that, they will happen as He says they will.
But God does not determine human beings choice of believing or not believing in Him.
He just doesn't want to have a bunch of pre-programmed guys and gals believe because He made them believe.
Bob Hill
But God does not determine human beings choice of believing or not believing in Him.
He just doesn't want to have a bunch of pre-programmed guys and gals believe because He made them believe.
Bob Hill
mitchellmckain
New member
Since I despise process theology and the work of Alfred North Whitehead from which it derives, and since I do not see credential in Boyd's Wikipedia description to inspire much confidence, I do not see much reason to read what he has to say. Remember that I do not consider myself a Open Theist. Open Theism goes too far. I merely consider myself closer to Open Theism than Calvinism on the free will versus God's sovereignty spectrum.godrulz said:
Of course. Not only do I have a masters in physics, but I spent considerable time on a project writing a simulator called relspace (available on my webpage) demonstrating special and general relativity on the stage of local planetary, stellar and galactic space. To sum up I am expert on special relativity and very familiar with general relativity (its mathematics as well as its concepts).godrulz said:
What I said was not an analogy. It is a basic example of fact. Knowledge cannot be completely divorced from the thing which is known. To know is to interfere. This is not a matter of ability but of the indeterminate nature of some things. To know them is to destroy their indeterminate nature.godrulz said:
Well I am unfamiliar with your terminology so all I can really do is explain my own related ideas. I am an admirer of Aristotle, but I do not care for the ideas of Plato at all.godrulz said:
I believe that God created time and space. Therefore, God exists outside time and space. Furthermore I think it is clear that time and space are part of the mathematical structure of physical energy. I think that quatum physics describes the boundary of that mathematical structure and the limitation to what interaction is allowed with energy which is outside of that mathematical structure. We can call this energy which is outside the mathematical structure of space-time, non-physical or spiritual energy. The interactions between these physical and spiritual forms of energy are a basic experience of human life in the choices we make. These interactions have two effects: 1. the course of physical events are altered in non-linear systems (such as in living organisms) and 2. spiritual energy is given form and structure. In other words, by our choices we are exceptions to the macroscopic determinism of physical laws, while at the same time our choice create our spiritual existence.
But this means that our spiritual existence exists outside of space and time, in the same way that God exist outside of space and time. The question is - what does this mean? Well time in one sense is simply an ordering of our thoughts and actions, and I do not mean that there is no such ordering. The point is that in the physical universe all events and people are bound within a single objective mathematical measure of space and time. Outside of this each form of energy - each spirit has it own independent structure. Relationships are not automatic by the force of some external mathematical law. Relationships must come from within us. It is neccessary therefore to make personal connections with others while we are alive. Clearly the most important of these would be a personal relationship with God Himself.
godrulz said:
Yes. God could look at the four dimensional universe and see the course of events from begining to end. I do not deny that God can do this. But for reasons of aesthics, at the very least, God does not do this. It would be like reading the end of a book before the beginning. Therefore I think God participates (reads the book of the universe) in the proper fashion starting at the beginning and proceeding in a time ordered manner to the end. The fact that He does this is very much a part of our free will. To look at the whole four dimensional universe at once would turn us into inanimate four dimensional objects like the characters in a book. You must understand. The decisions of God are the laws of universe. They do not change because He does not alter his own decisions like a person confused about what he is doing.
Hmmm. I read the Wikipedia article. His argument for human free will is interesting. The stuff on time and relativity also sounds valid and interesting. But I do not think I believe in your right track. There is not just one way, but many.godrulz said:
Of course. HOWEVER, I do not pretend to know any such thing, for I refuse to act like I have in the Bible a contract with which I can bind God. I think it is ridiculous to think that we can control, manipulate, appease, or bind God in any way. And that is the proper fear of God!Lonster said:
For think about it. Why should we fear God? He is the definition of goodness and love. What is there to fear in that? There is no one who is more reliable or who loves us more than He does. So why should we fear Him????? It is precisely because we cannot control, manipulate, appease, or bind God in any way. We cannot be "sure" of Him in the manner that we are accustomed to. We are at His mercy. We must have faith.
How do you know that it is unrealistic to think that things cannot be proven?mitchellmckain said:
If things cannot be proven, how do you even know that the presumption that things can be proven is a presumption that you do not accept?
That was a confusing question to even ask but I think I asked it right. :freak:
Are you saying that theology is just a subjective matter of opinion?
If not, then by what means do you establish objective truth?
Resting in Him,
Clete
Open Theist Clarke Pinnock (I do not agree with all of his ideas) shows the differences between Process Thought and Open Theism. The former leads to finite godism, the latter to biblical truth free from philosophical trappings.
Wikipedia is popular, but not the most credible source for definitive information.
Time is not a created thing like matter. It is simply duration/succession/sequence. A personal being, even an uncreated eternal one, must experience time as an aspect of His experience to act, feel, think. Time is not a line that God can exist outside of. The biblical narrative shows him experiencing and endless duration of time, not incoherent timelessness (Ps. 90:2; Rev. 1:4, 8 tensed expressions). Time is not space (distinction blurred by relativity THEORY). The unique MEASURE (subjective) of time did have a beginning (Gen. 1:1 sun, moon, stars), but time itself does not have a beginning (eternal is endless time, not timelessness).
The future is not there yet to 'see'. It does not exist. The potential future becomes the fixed past through the present. Contingencies (freedom) precludes exhaustive foreknowledge (determinism).
Revelation > reason. We should not believe incoherent things about God and His reality just to allow for Him to be unbound. What we know about God is true, but not exhaustive. Logically contradictory things like creating a rock too big to lift are absurd, not possibilities or limitations for an omnipotent God.
Finally, an intelligent, well-spoken life form on TOL
Clete will give you a better run on theoretical physics. This is not my expertise. Your physics may apply to the created order, but I am getting at the root of fundamental issues: the uncreated Creator's existence before material creation.
Do you attend a church (denomination)?
What are your views on creationism vs evolution (theistic, Young earth, etc.)?
Thank you for your thoughtful post. We do not expect detailed responses.
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mitchellmckain
New member
I guess you meant to ask: "How do you know that it is unrealistic to think that things can be proven?" HA HA HA. Obviously I cannot. But that is my subjective impression based on my experience of the world.Clete said:
I did not say that nothing can be proven. But so few things can in fact be proven that I consider this a poor presumption upon which to base human communication. Proofs work well in a few things like mathematics. But the funny thing is, that one of the things that you can prove, is that you cannot prove that mathematics is consistent.Clete said:
Another thing that I can prove is that I exist, but your existence is another matter entirely. My acceptance is a matter of my own choice, and my choices are who I am. There is perhaps a great deal about myself which I do not know or understand, but my choices are not among those things.
How shall I answer this? ... Yes. As a matter of faith, I accept that the Bible is authoritative as the word of God to all mankind. However it is the only authority that I accept that has been given into the hands of men for the determination of the truth. I do not, for example, believe that any persons interpretation of scripture has any greater authority than any other persons.Clete said:
But there are so many interpretations! What then, is God a God of confusion? Sometimes, He is indeed just that! Human beings like to build a single monolithic structure of power and "truth". But when they do this, individual freedom and responsibility vanishes. And so God has always found goodness among human beings in the singular individual like Noah who is different from all the rest. Therefore is it any wonder, that in order to preserve goodness in the world and humanity, God must destroy such structures of power and "truth" as the tower of Babel and the pre-Reformation Catholic church, to encourage a plurality of languages, culture, denominations and understandings of the world?
In a world of diversity God not only encourages individual responsibility but He also encourages us trust in Him alone as our one true Lord and king, for He would have us look to Him alone, that He may rule in our lives. Consider the following:
Samuel 8:5-10 said:
God saw Israel's demand for a human authority over them as a rejection of His rule over them.
Objective truth? What do you think that you mean by that? If you would base the truth on objective observations then what you get is science. I think the idea that science is the sum total of truth is absurd. Our experience of reality is primarily subjective not objective, therefore the objective is pure abstraction. Science has an extreme sort of tunnel vision in order to limit its apprehension of the truth to that abstraction. I have a much wider field of vision than that.Clete said:
But God is clearly something which is apprehended subjectively NOT objectively. Where you and I see God, the atheist does not. This is a basic reality which you must understand and accept.
Of course. But Wikipedia is at our finger tips. Ho hum... so much to read.... I am afraid I must ask you to digest and present what wish me to read of his, for certainly if you make the effort to write it (even quoted) then I shall make the effort to read it.godrulz said:
Upon this we obviously and utterly disagree. Only the physical is ruled by mathematical relationships!godrulz said:
This is your "right track" again. Things are not so one dimensional. Sometimes the truth can only be apprehended by seeing them from different points of view. Light is a particle and yet light is a wave. These are two utterly contradictory ways of looking at the same thing and yet we must look at it in both ways in order to begin to understand it. God in particular, being infinite, is something we cannot even begin to understand in such a simple one-dimensional manner.godrulz said:
What I am trying to say is that we are really saying the same thing from two different perspectives. You say the future does not exist, I say that God has not read that part yet. What you call the potential future, I have called God's aesthic integrity. God's integrity is the essence of reality just as His decisions are the laws of the universe. The result is the same. Exhaustive forknowledge is precluded.
When someone says something like revelation > reason, what they are really saying is "my interpretation of scripture is more authoritative than yours". I repudiate this utterly and say, shame on you. The word of God is given to me to read and understand and Christ is the only mediator between me and God. What is logically contradictory about a rock to heavy to lift? Do mean the question about whether God can create a rock so heavy that He cannot lift it? The only contradiction in this is a contradiction with insistence by human beings to reduce God to a definition of omnipotence. It is that reduction which is absurd. God can indeed create a rock so heavy that He cannot lift it. His decisions are the laws of the universe. If He decides that He will never lift a rock then that decision become the nature of the rock. The point is that you cannot use your definitions to limit God. God is quite capable of risk, sacrifice, and self-limitation.godrulz said:
But if that is the case, then you are speaking about things which are infinitely dimensional, and for which human language is utterly inadequate. Therefore you must excercise extreme caution when speaking about such things to others, for human communication about them must be difficult in the greatest extreme.godrulz said:
An internet denominational quiz puts "Assembly of God" on the top of my list. I could not understand this at first. But when I looked at the bottom of the list and found the Mormons, Unitarians, Unity, and Catholics, it began to make much more sense. Then I realized that Assembly of God was in fact the closest thing on their list to the Church which I attend: Calvary Chapel. It is a group of churches orgininating in California which strives for a balance between charismatic and fundamentalist. And yet if you look into what they believe you find nothing like what I believe. They, for example, accept three of the five points of Calvinism, while I reject them all.godrulz said:
In addition they are YEC and I am not. I am a theistic evolutionist or evolutionary creationist who believes in a literal Adam and Eve. I take the first chapters of Genesis to be historical but not literal or scientific. Genesis is not a "creation for dummies" book. Its purpose is not to explain how God created the universe or mankind but to explain the nature of man's essential relationship to God. To treat Genesis as if it where a science book brings it down from lofty heights of deep fundamental spritual truth to the most demeaning trivialization, making it into some kind of fantasy comic book.
So no, I do not believe that we were created by God by means of some kind of necromancy. Adam was not an animated golem of dust and Eve was not the reanimation of someones body part. These are mythic elements in a story that was passed down in an oral tradition for a very very long time. The real point of the story of their creation is that they were created in the image of God for that is essentially what all children are, created in the image of their parents. In some sense all life is created in the image of God and life is itself His "child" but in a more abstract manner that we not would usually identify as a parent-child relationship. But in Adam and Eve, the abstract becomes concrete, for here was a form of life with whom God could communicate directly.
But in this higher sense, we are not the children of God in the creation of our bodies, but in the creation of our minds. Our bodies are just primates, but as minds we are forms of life of a totally different nature, a higher form of life than the animals more so than the animals are a higher form of life than viruses. Inheritance is a basic fact of all life. In biological life that inheritance is passed on by the means of a molecule called Deoxy-ribonucleic acid. But our mental life is passed by means of communication from parent to child that originally comes directly from God Himself to Adam and Eve. To put it simply the means of inheritance that makes us the children of God is the word of God.
Only that which is said clearly and well (thoroughly) is worth saying at all. I am sorry that it is a lot to read, but real human communication is a very very difficult task, especially on these topics about which we speak. I would rather make a sincere attempt at communication than merely pretend.godrulz said:
I would not normally read long posts and many will not read your long posts (it was a hint in order for you to have more impact here). Your keen mind and good attitude merit consideration of your ideas.
I read your thoughts and appreciate them. So, you do not attend a local church?
www.icr.org Science and Scripture do not have to contradict. I would question some of your science and philosophy and theology.
I think theistic evolution is bad science and a compromise of Scripture.
http://www.icr.org/article/2701/
http://www.icr.org/article/164/
http://www.icr.org/article/137/
Can God make black, white at the same time? Can He make square circles? I think you need a paradigm shift, lest we attribute absurdity to God's reasoned creation order. God cannot make a rock too heavy to lift. I think you need to rethink your understanding here.
Revelation > bad reasoning...better? We use reason to apprehend revelation, but human reasoning may fall short of spiritual truth...e.g. we see the existence of God from creation, but we cannot reason that He is triune (Trinity) without special revelation. We also cannot fully understand God's triune nature with reason alone. What we understand is based on revelation, but we do not understand it exhaustively with finite minds.
If the uncreated spirit of God never created, your ideas on physics would not be relevant to the nature of His existence. God, in His triune relations, fellowshipped, loved, communicated, etc. This all presupposes duration and sequence, not simultaneity (i.e. time). A symphony played in one millisecond would be cacophony, even for God (but to a lesser degree). Time is not a limitation on God, but an aspect of His existence.
I read your thoughts and appreciate them. So, you do not attend a local church?
www.icr.org Science and Scripture do not have to contradict. I would question some of your science and philosophy and theology.
I think theistic evolution is bad science and a compromise of Scripture.
http://www.icr.org/article/2701/
http://www.icr.org/article/164/
http://www.icr.org/article/137/
Can God make black, white at the same time? Can He make square circles? I think you need a paradigm shift, lest we attribute absurdity to God's reasoned creation order. God cannot make a rock too heavy to lift. I think you need to rethink your understanding here.
Revelation > bad reasoning...better? We use reason to apprehend revelation, but human reasoning may fall short of spiritual truth...e.g. we see the existence of God from creation, but we cannot reason that He is triune (Trinity) without special revelation. We also cannot fully understand God's triune nature with reason alone. What we understand is based on revelation, but we do not understand it exhaustively with finite minds.
If the uncreated spirit of God never created, your ideas on physics would not be relevant to the nature of His existence. God, in His triune relations, fellowshipped, loved, communicated, etc. This all presupposes duration and sequence, not simultaneity (i.e. time). A symphony played in one millisecond would be cacophony, even for God (but to a lesser degree). Time is not a limitation on God, but an aspect of His existence.
mitchellmckain
New member
Did you miss it. I said Calvary Chapel or more specifically Calvary Chapel of Salt Lake, with pastor Terry Long. You can find it on the web easily.godrulz said:
Science and Scripture do not contradict because they do have the same subject matter.godrulz said:
You are welcome to question my theology and philosophy to your hearts content. I, however, seriously question your understanding of science. Theistic evolution is not science in any way whatsoever. It is meta-science and theology. Evolution is a scientific theory. Creationism and ID is the pure rhetoric of those who have no understanding of the difference between science and rhetoric.godrulz said:
To understand how evolution is entirely compatable with creation you have to understand the tunnel vision of science and how it is utterly blind to the aspects of reality which cannot be observed objectively.
It is clear to me that you are a part of the popular fundamentalist culture that categorically rejects science. As a Christian I cannot fault your priorities. Our relationship with God far exceeds the proper comprehension of science in importance. As scientist, however, I must strenously defend science against the efforts of your popular culture to confuse science with rhetoric.
That which is defined in a contradictory manner has simply not been successfully defined. This can be a result of a communication failure or a deliberate attempt to fail to define anything at all. If the second is the case when you ask about God making square circles, then you have not even succeeded in asking a question. Can God make ao4ous? Answer that! But what if I said that a square circle is a four sided geometrical object (with four corners) whose sides are segments of a circle all of the same radius but with different centers. Having successfully defined "square circles" I can now successfully ask the question, "can God make square circles?"godrulz said:
Why do I need to rethink something, when it is abundantly clear to me that I have thought about the question far more than you have? (Dispense with condescension and we can avoid increasing hostility)
No, it still means that you think your interpretation of scripture has more authority than mine. Who is to say what is bad reasoning and what is not? You? No. God? Yes. But as I said before, I require no other mediator between myself and God other than Christ.godrulz said:
There is no such revelation of a triune God. The only only revelation with any authority is the Bible and the Trinity is nowhere to be found in the Bible. The Trinity is a doctrine of men. It is however one that I accept. The question is why?
The Trinity is a product of compromise by the eccumenical councils that was reached in order to embrace the totality of scripture. So although I think it is clear that the Trinity is nowhere in the Bible, it is nevertheless Biblical in the sense that this is the conception of God which is most compatable with scripture. Nevertheless this does not change the fact that it is a doctrine created by human beings to understand something which is really completely beyond our capacity to understand.
I agree with worldwide Christian consensus which includes the doctrine of the Trinity as part of what it means to be Christian. And so I concede authority to this consensus in regards to the definition of what is Christian, but not in regards to the ultimate truth. Let me put it another way. The Trinity is the best idea of God that I have got, better than any other idea put out by any other religious group, but I will not deny the possibility that it could be completely wrong, because the truth might very well be something that no one can even imagine.
What we see of God in the universe that He has created has not so much to do with the nature of His existence as it has to do with His purpose. And the one thing about his nature that I think this purpose reveals is that we are dealing with an infinite God.godrulz said:
But in this case I think you are talking complete nonsense. An infinite God is quite beyond human understanding let alone the limits of logic and rational thinking. To imagine that the finite human mind is capable of a significant grasp of the nature of an infinite God seems utterly absurd to me. It should be no surprise to you that your concept of God is not the God that I worship. I do not worship any such concept. We humans beings would be utterly without any means of getting beyond the delusional self-gratifying concepts of God we construct if it were not for the act of God on the cross which pierces all those delusion to gives us one small glimpse of the real God.
You must come to realize that people can conceptualize things in a vast variety of ways and yet come to identical conclusions regarding the things which are truly important. It does not do therefore to jump to the conclusion that just because someone disagrees with some particular detail of the way you conceptualize things that they are therefore lost in the outer darkness.godrulz said:
I am beginning to see that a lot of this argument may be the result of a misunderstanding. I never meant to suggest that God exists without time, but only that His time is not our time. This is, in fact, the clear statement of the Bible. When I said God created time and space I meant that it is clear that the time and space that we experience in this universe is part of its mathematical structure and therefore part of what God created when God created the universe. But I tried to explain (but apparently you did not get it) that existing outside of the time and space of this physical universe does not mean that God has no time of His own, or similarly that our spirits which exist outside of this physical time and space have no time of their own. As I explained, what is lacking is an overarching time that binds all things together. Outside of physical time and space things are not ruled by mathematical laws or universal mathematical measures of time and space.
I also begin to perceive that your objections are largely related to the ideas of God as unchanging and timeless. Another misuderstanding because I sympathize entirely. However, I would seek a compromise with orthodoxy rather than the fully open theist perspective. Much of what you are talking about are aspects of God that have to do with relationshps, between God and man and between the Father and the Son while Jesus was here living within physical time and space. But I have no problem with these things because I see God as an intimate participant in the this universe in a time ordered fashion - that is in a manner which is consistent with the Minkowsky structure of space-time and local causality.
Much of the character of any person, God included, is of a relational character. Have you ever heard the phrase, "I do not like who I become when I am with you"? As a partipant in a reationship with His creations, God has a realational aspect to His character that changes and learns - very much like the open theist conception of God. In this way I can embrace a more sensible idea of God with whom we can have a meaningful relationship without going around repudiating orthodox conceptions of God.
:rotfl:elected4ever said:
mitchellmckain said:
Pulease. Creation Scientists have doctorate degrees from secular, scientific institutions. Their goal is to do good science, not believe fairy tales. Atheistic scientists are not always right. Modern science was strongly influenced by theists.
e.g. what does the geological record support? Uniformitarianism or catastrophism? A global flood can explain much of what we see as opposed to long ages of erosion.
Being in the medical field, who is being condescending to suggest that I am a fundamentalist who 'categorically rejects science'?! Cmon.
Apart from semantic game playing, most children recognize that a circle is not a square at the same time (by common understanding/observation). Your point is technical, but misses the logical point about contradiction or mutual exclusivity.
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mitchellmckain
New member
Just because someone with a scientific education is doing something doesn't mean they are doing science.godrulz said:
And no doubt, you have the final say on which scientists are theist and which are atheist.godrulz said:
Look you are the one making the ridiculous distinction. Anyone actually working with scientists knows there is no such distinction. There is simply the work. You making a distinction between theist and atheist scientists is what makes it clear that you confuse science with rhetoric.
God is not objectively observable. Therefore God has no place in science anymore than God belongs in the blueprint for a computer chip or a diagram of human anatomy.
Real scientists who happen to be Christian know this and will defend science against the effort of your popular culture to confuse it with rhetoric. Part of the problem is that atheists have being pushing this same confusion between science and rhetoric for such a long time that a lot of Christians have begun to believe their lies and join the atheists in their confusion.
If that is something decided by rhetoric then it is not science. It is only science if it is decided by scientific methodology. The difference is that rhetoric sets out to prove a conclusion. This has its place in the courtroom and in sales, and perhaps in some expressions of religion, but not in science.godrulz said:
I withdraw that statement. You have to know what science is first, before you can really reject it categorically. My ten year old son is watching television. Is he a scientist? I am a physcist instructor. Am I a scientist?godrulz said:
No. My current profession is not that of a scientist. I know that because I know what science is.
Look, no doubt this off topic rhetoric will escalate out of control. Is there really any point? My son likes inventing board games, perhaps he will call his next one "science" and we can both be "scientists" as we play his made up game. The catholic church has played the game of proving the answers it "knows" to be correct for sixteen hundred years. I will put up the scientific method against that anyday, in any race to discover new things about the world around us.
Who missed whose point? Who says what is contradictory and what is not? You may declare as many of your sentences to be contradictory as you care to. You are after all the author and should know whether they have any meaning or not. So when you say "a rock too heavy to lift" is an intentional contradiction and that you, in fact, mean nothing at all by this, then that is for you to say. But when I say "a rock so heavy that even God cannot lift it", I deny there is any contradiction for I most definitely do mean something by that.godrulz said:
Clete said:
That is correct. My interpretation has no more authority than theirs. My interpretation has no more authority than my ten year old son's. All the authority belongs to God, but all during His ministry on the earth He continually invested authority in the scriptures as the word of God.
I do not speak for God. There is no need. God speaks for Himself to say exactly what He wishes to say. If I give my interpretation, it so that you may go the the word of God with all the interpretations you may have heard and judge for yourself.
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The Word of God was meant to be understood and rightly interpreted. Truth can be known.
Science helps us understand God's creation. We are stewards of the planet. Good science can reveal the wonders of God. Revelation is how we learn about God Himself.
Theology is the queen of sciences. I would not divorce observational science and creation from theology, the study of God. We should take God's Word seriously (creation account), even if it contradicts humanistic science. The fossil record can be explained by a global, Noahic flood. Evolutionary presuppositions do not have as strong a case (no transitional forms, etc.). I would not defer to a secular understanding when Scripture AND science lead to more biblical, scientific conclusions.
Science helps us understand God's creation. We are stewards of the planet. Good science can reveal the wonders of God. Revelation is how we learn about God Himself.
Theology is the queen of sciences. I would not divorce observational science and creation from theology, the study of God. We should take God's Word seriously (creation account), even if it contradicts humanistic science. The fossil record can be explained by a global, Noahic flood. Evolutionary presuppositions do not have as strong a case (no transitional forms, etc.). I would not defer to a secular understanding when Scripture AND science lead to more biblical, scientific conclusions.
mitchellmckain
New member
Thank you very very much for restraining the escalation of hostility.
The answer to these questions is one of the differences between a Christian and a Mormon.
Rightly understood according to God of course. The Bible is God's word to mankind. It is not flawed. It is precisely what God wants to say to us. It is insufficient, because it was never intended to do any job alone. But it does not need you or me to fill any gap, because God is not dead. God is alive and present and He is quite sufficient.
Evolution is only a one-sided view of a relationship between all living things and God as nurturer. It is kind of like describing a marriage in terms of money transfers and bank statements. It may be accurate but it misses the point. Likewise we can say that evolution misses the point as far as a Christian is concern, but NOT as far as the scientist is concerned.
Rightly understood according to who? Is the Bible God's word to mankind or not? Is it flawed? Is it insufficient? Does it need you or me to fill some gap?godrulz said:
The answer to these questions is one of the differences between a Christian and a Mormon.
Rightly understood according to God of course. The Bible is God's word to mankind. It is not flawed. It is precisely what God wants to say to us. It is insufficient, because it was never intended to do any job alone. But it does not need you or me to fill any gap, because God is not dead. God is alive and present and He is quite sufficient.
Yes indeed. That is I agree with everything but the word "good" which you have placed in front of the word "science". Science can indeed reveal the wonders of God to a person who has the required awareness of the totality of reality. But that is NOT the task of science. "Good" science follows the scientific method which has proven itself beyond a shadow of any doubt to be the most successful means of finding out new things about the world around us that is objectively observable. Not in finding the truth about everything! But only in finding a very limited sort of truth about a very limited set of topics.godrulz said:
Yes and science is originally a branch of philosophy called natural philosophy, but this and your use of the word science is completely outdated. That is simply not what people mean anymore when they use the word science. Theology is not responsible for the rather dramatic recent changes in the world and it therefore has no part in the modern meaning of the word science. Humanism is a philophy and it too has nothing to do with the modern meaning of the word science. These changes are due to the sucess of the application of the scientific method in achieving the peculiar type of discovery that has been so useful to human invention and engineering. Any denial of this rather obvious fact is the most self-deluding rhetoric. To call it humanist or atheistic is stupidest kind of insult, as if you wish to credit humanism or atheism with these changes in the world. It is plainly absurd. You have plainly fallen for the propaganda of atheists and utterly confused science with atheistic/humanist rhetoric.godrulz said:
Evolution is only a one-sided view of a relationship between all living things and God as nurturer. It is kind of like describing a marriage in terms of money transfers and bank statements. It may be accurate but it misses the point. Likewise we can say that evolution misses the point as far as a Christian is concern, but NOT as far as the scientist is concerned.
Creationists affirm micro vs macro evolution, based on science and reason. Evolution is a flawed, pseudo-science (evolution as a humanistic concept to explain origins apart from a supernatural Creator...the scientific evidence stands against evolution).
mitchellmckain
New member
There is certainly a great deal of pseudoscientific atheist/humanistic rhetoric out their that upholds evolution like a religious doctrine to deny the possibility of a role for God in the creation of life. I have no doubt that Creationists have plenty of detailed research to back up some excelent rhetoric in refutation of this atheist/humanist doctrine. I have particularly found ideas about the more recent existence of dinosaurs to be quite interesting. I think finding evidence of such a thing would we wonderful. Humble pie is a nice desert to serve all around.godrulz said:
In a feeble attempt to get this discussion back on track, may I ask if you attend a particular church, and what is their stand in the spectrum from Calvinism to Open Theism?
Okay, just to recap, let me get this all into one post...
I asked in response...
To which Mitchell responded...
I would be ashamed if I were David Koresh!
But you claim that rightly dividing the Word of Truth cannot even be done! Or at the very least we have no way of knowing when or if it's been done and the interpretations of obvious lunatics hold as much weight as your own. That is shameful Mitchell. SHAMEFUL!
How am I supposed to take anything you say seriously at all in the first place? By you own admission, your opinions aren't any better than Jim Jones' or David Koresh's! These men were rapists and murderers, Mitchel! They used the Bible to kill people and build harems for themselves and you're telling me that they opinions are just as valid as are yours. In my mind that makes you a lunatic. The bottom line is that there just isn't any way that you actually believe that. You only said it because I backed you into a corner with your own words. You had a choice to make. You could have chosen to be inconsistent and say "Of course David Koresh's interpretation was completely wrong and sinful." but instead you decided to stick to your guns and destroy any credibility you might have had based on your ability to articulate your thoughts in writing. Poor choice. What you should have done was to see the obvious mistake you've made and repent of it. An option, which is still open to you, by the way; that is, if your credibility is worth anything to you at all.
Resting in Him,
Clete
mitchellmckain said:
I asked in response...
Clete said:
To which Mitchell responded...
Those same Scriptures command US to rightly divide the Scripture so as to be a workman that NEED NOT BE ASHAMED!!!mitchellmckain said:
I would be ashamed if I were David Koresh!
But you claim that rightly dividing the Word of Truth cannot even be done! Or at the very least we have no way of knowing when or if it's been done and the interpretations of obvious lunatics hold as much weight as your own. That is shameful Mitchell. SHAMEFUL!
And so you don't get to speak for God but I do?! What planet are you on? If you are not allowed to judge for yourself what the Bible says (i.e. what God says), why are you telling me that I am?
How am I supposed to take anything you say seriously at all in the first place? By you own admission, your opinions aren't any better than Jim Jones' or David Koresh's! These men were rapists and murderers, Mitchel! They used the Bible to kill people and build harems for themselves and you're telling me that they opinions are just as valid as are yours. In my mind that makes you a lunatic. The bottom line is that there just isn't any way that you actually believe that. You only said it because I backed you into a corner with your own words. You had a choice to make. You could have chosen to be inconsistent and say "Of course David Koresh's interpretation was completely wrong and sinful." but instead you decided to stick to your guns and destroy any credibility you might have had based on your ability to articulate your thoughts in writing. Poor choice. What you should have done was to see the obvious mistake you've made and repent of it. An option, which is still open to you, by the way; that is, if your credibility is worth anything to you at all.
Resting in Him,
Clete
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