Lon
Well-known member
God does micromanage. A blanket statement that He does not, is just that, an untrue blanket statement that doesn't work or apply.
Can you demonstrate also, how the laws of thermodynamics apply to your discussion?
ARCHIVE: Open Theism part 2
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God does micromanage. A blanket statement that He does not, is just that, an untrue blanket statement that doesn't work or apply.
Can you demonstrate also, how the laws of thermodynamics apply to your discussion?
I do not doubt that someone might ask that question honestly but Rob's premise is ridiculous. He is not now, nor has he ever been here for substantive exchange. He is altogether incapable of it as his last post proves beyond any doubt whatsoever.
The closest I am going to come to responding to the question is to say that the only reason the word "theodicy" exists is because of the Settled View; there very simply isn't a problem of evil in the Open View at all. It doesn't exist as the entire question presupposes its own answer from within an Open View paradigm.
That's as much of an answer as you are going to get from me on this thread. If others want to elaborate that's up to them but as for what you, or some knuckle-headed Settled Viewer idiot like RobE, want to mischaracterize because of my not wanting to dignify RobE's stupidity with a substantive response, I couldn't care less. Nothing I say would avoid such a mischaracterization anyway as that is Rob's entire purpose for being here in the first place. And so you can stop attempting to bait me into answering. I'm not going to lose one wink of sleep worrying about how some almost totally anonymous idiot on the internet mischaracterizes what he can't substantively refute.
Resting in Him,
Clete
Philetus
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Romans 8:20 For the creation was subjected to frustration, not by its own choice, but by the will of the one who subjected it, in hope 21 that the creation itself will be liberated from its bondage to decay and brought into the glorious freedom of the children of God.
Ro 8:20 For the creation was subjected to frustration, … in hope
Who is the one who subjected creation to frustration? Who is hoping in this verse?
Hope isn’t a dirty word … even for God. In hope one knows that the likelihood of a particular thing happening depends to some degree at least on the say-so of others. Hope doesn’t control or force it’s will on others or the future. Like a father who longs for his prodigal son, one who hopes waits expectantly and patiently in long-suffering if necessary for what it seeks to attain; the son’s return.
Nang is correct at least in that hope IS a gift from God. And it is a well used gift by God, too! She just so much wants the settled view to be right ... well ... nothing new from the 'right'.
RobE
New member
Well, OT's spend much time contemplating the problem of evil, which they believe exists if God foreknows the future. It's central to their arguments against traditional Christian views.
The arguments go something like this:
If God foreknew that a child would get brutally molested before the foundations of the world were established then He bears responsibility for the acts committed against the child. Does this sound like a loving, caring creator?
Traditional Christianity's response is much like how Lee Merrill replied a few posts ago. Basically the reply is that God had a purpose or plan which will ultimately result in the most possible good for creation. Theodicy is the attempt to answer these questions.
______________________________________
Open Theists believe that their view escapes the problem since God is simply 'playing it by ear' and didn't decree, foreordain, or foresee evil in His design.
My argument against this would be:
Since God did not foreknow that a child would get brutally molested before the foundations of the world were established, and God allows the child to get molested - isn't it the same other than He just found out about it at a later date?
It gets worse for the o.v. from here:
Not only, does God have to be shocked by the happening, but must make a decision not to intervene now. Also He would have no idea as to what result would be yielded from the evil act since He can't possibly foreknow the ramifications the molestation will have on creation.
See, the problem of evil gets exponentially worse if open theism is correct about God's inability to 'bring about good' because He is constantly having His will trumped by the will of man. Realistically, it would make it impossible to say that God has a plan to bring Good when He is caught off guard by every act of free will.
God is a very busy deity indeed if the o.v. is correct. Almost Zeus-like in His dealings with mankind. Forced to be reactive instead of proactive.
Back to my question......
If you put the situation in the Garden against my example above you might ask why didn't God stop Satan in the Garden if the o.v. is correct? They can't say that He did it because He foreknew the ultimate good which would occur because of it.
:think:
For God to elimate evil NOW, existence would cease. The Great White Throne Judgment and casting of Satan into the lake of fire has not happened yet (Revelation) because God is patient, not wanting any to perish but all to come to repentance (Peter).
Gratuitous evil has no purpose. Satan comes to rob, kill, destroy. This is a by-product of free will vs determinism, but justice will take place in the end.
If you have an answer, and you do, then I think your brilliance would help others. There questions are legit and merit answer, even if you do not think they are smart or sincere.
Can can and does micromanage some things, exceptionally, so I would also agree with these texts. The weight of Scripture, though, is that God normatively macromanages while allowing significant creaturely freedom.
Who named all the animals? Bob Dylan's song on 'Slow Train Coming' album will answer it (or just read Genesis): God or Man?
A simpler book than Sander's "The God who risks" or Boyd's 'Satan and the problem of evil' is Boyd's readable:
http://www.amazon.com/God-Blame-Moving-Answers-Problem/dp/0830823948
(click search inside for contents and sample pages)
For those who want a cogent, systematic understanding (summary vs detail) of Open Theism's theodicy, start here for $10. Then tackle Sanders or Boyd's other book.
For those who simply want to remain indoctrinated in problematic Calvinism, keep demanding Clete to spoon feed all the answers in a short post. Rightly so, he will not. Learn to research and think.:surf:
Rob: You continue to underestimate God's greatness and anticipatory ability. Don't look at God through man's limited perspective. Just because you do not think we can control things without knowing in advance or causing things, does not mean that God cannot 'control' things without EDF or omnicausality.
http://www.amazon.com/God-Blame-Moving-Answers-Problem/dp/0830823948
(click search inside for contents and sample pages)
For those who want a cogent, systematic understanding (summary vs detail) of Open Theism's theodicy, start here for $10. Then tackle Sanders or Boyd's other book.
For those who simply want to remain indoctrinated in problematic Calvinism, keep demanding Clete to spoon feed all the answers in a short post. Rightly so, he will not. Learn to research and think.:surf:
Rob: You continue to underestimate God's greatness and anticipatory ability. Don't look at God through man's limited perspective. Just because you do not think we can control things without knowing in advance or causing things, does not mean that God cannot 'control' things without EDF or omnicausality.
Lon
Well-known member
Ouch
RobE
New member
Why does God have to wait for the 'Great White Throne Judgement' to eliminate evil. Couldn't God have stopped Satan from deceiving Eve in the Garden? If not, why not?
If God eliminates evil before the GWT, creation would cease to exist. He would have to wipe us all out. His patience and mercy precludes this (Peter).
God could have stopped Satan by not creating Lucifer and not creating Adam. He could have made robots, but He did not in order to have love relationships, not Dictator-slave entities.
A theodicy cannot escape the free will factor and remain defensible. Even without Satan, Adam could have still sinned. Temptation is an influence, not a causation (or we would not be responsible).
Since Scripture does not definitively answer you question, don't expect me to. The nature of justice and mercy, irrevocable freedom, etc. are factors to start with.
From quotes like these (and I don't need to link to them... they're right here):
"I hold that God did not decree the fall of man."
"2. Allow man to fall into sin through his own self-determination
...
Note from the above that God is not the author of sin, whether or not Adam fell when he did or two years later."
"As I replied, it does not matter when Adam sinned, but only that Adam did sin."
The event I'm referring to is Adam's sin.
Whatever antecedent or proximate causes occur, God is the first cause of both types. Do you agree?
God knowing His preceptive will does not matter in the context of this discussion, only if God knows His decretive will which you admit He does.
And you also admit that God can communicate. We have not only God's communication from the bible, but we have in the bible examples of God talking to whoever He wants about whatever He wants.
I read the post to Mighty Duck and it doesn't have anything to do with this quote, or, for that matter, with this discussion so far.
It is reasonable for a person who hears you say "God is ultimately responsible, as the first cause, for all events" to conclude that God determined Adam's first sin (even if it was determined within God's decretive will). But then you say Adam determined the event (and, in fact, you say ONLY ADAM determined the event). So you would have to admit that a reasonable person has cause to question whether this is a contradiction.Ask Mr. Religion said:
And in the context of that reasonable conclusion when they hear you say " But no matter how hard you press the matter, you won't make God the author of the proximate sinful actions of His self-determined creatures." you must admit it sounds like you are saying "it's turtles all the way down".
You are agreeing with both premises. Do I have to spell this out for you, or can you see it just by reading the above four quotes?
No, I didn't misunderstand. You said "If Adam had sinned at some other time, there would be no absurdity" and I pointed out that "If Adam had sinned at some other time" it would be an absurdity... to which to agreed! You may not realize you agreed with me, but when you said "'If Adam sinned at some other time' is irrelevant" you removed half of the equation, nulling the absurdity. You had to. You realize that EITHER Adam is a puppet, OR "actions are foreseen because the actions are certain to take place" describes a God that can do the absurd!
Why don't you just believe "God can do the logically absurd" and this discussion will be completed.
And if we could be even more complete, you would agree you believe: God exhaustively foreknows because God exhaustively foreordains.
So the question I would have is; if God did not decree Adam's sin, did God ordain Adam's sin?
AMR continues:
And as I've repeated, foreknowledge combined with the first cause IS in itself foreordination.
AMR continues:
Above, you said that Adam's sin was "self determined". I hope you realize that "deciding" and "determining" can be used interchangeably. And that being said, can you give a reason beyond proof passages that explain this contradiction (the one where God decides Adam's sin and Adam's sin is self-determined)? If you said "God can do the logically absurd", that would suffice.
That doesn't look like an ad hominem to me, but I'll recast.
I would also say that if God cannot have a new thought, then He is obviously, Himself, a part of the watch made by the Divine Watchmaker UNLESS God can do the logically absurd. And it's OKAY for you to believe that, just don't insist that people that believe the OV don't have legitimate concerns that the SV is wrong. Rather, you can say, "thanks brother for your concerns, I see now that my view of the nature of God, something that is foundational to all that I teach, has some valid questions with implications that I might be wrong."
Ask Mr. Religion
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Yeah, well, I think I have the record, or am very close, for being the "first cause" of so many POTDs on TOL. The POTD algorithm is not a mystery.
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RobE
New member
This may be true, but it doesn't address the fact that God had the proximity and ability to stop it before it came into the world or immediately afterwords.
What does this emotional statement have to do with the discussion(italics above)? The better question for o.t. is why He didn't stop the process(entrance of sin into the world) at some point after He discovered it(i.e. before Adam ate of the fruit). Was it impossible to create another woman? Adam still had ribs left.
This, however doesn't address the problem the o.v. has with "why would He do this" unless there was some benefit foreseen by him to do so. Which, btw, is resolved within traditional Christianity through Theodicy.
I find this interesting because the o.v. always asserts that Adam need not have sinned. Have you ever asked yourself why was the tree of knowledge placed in the garden? As far as temptation not being a causation you should realize that influence, temptation, and causation are almost synonymous terms. Temptation is an influence that if followed becomes a causation. Our ideas of responsibility are obviously different since you are unable to admit to yourself or others that the o.v. has the same problems with Theodicy that traditional Christianity has.
I certainly agree that Divine Justice and Divine Mercy are both factors in this issue. However, we'll see how irrevocable freedom is at the judgement seat.
Thanks for the reply,
Rob
Lon
Well-known member
They were good questions for clarification BUT most of them were already addressed. Yorz did a nice job of summarizing, I think, in wading through the information and asking appropriate questions. Again, I think they have been answered, but this post played them out in an orderly way.
In particular, I believe first-cause and subsequent sin is an important discussion. While OV is able to circumnavigate the questions to some extent, the answers create more perplexing questions afterwards so that it is really a good and difficult set of considerations for Theology in general where all must wrestle.
Rob: God actualized a world that had the highest possibility of good and glory to Him.
To avoid evil, He could have continued in His tranquil triune relations and not created at all. He chose to share His love and life by creating others.
To avoid evil, He could have created a deterministic world, but at the expense of love, relationship, and freedom. He did not do this, so your desire to have a risk free model will not work. Love and relationship involve potential risk, something God was prepared to accept and have a plan to redeem the situation, as He did, in Gen. 3.
You cannot have your cake and eat it too. God could have wiped things out early in the game, but freedom and justice trumped this, for the time. He could go back to triune God alone forever, or start with another Adam-Eve prototype. Sooner or later, the mess would happen again (probable). Do you want Him to keep wiping things out everytime their is a glitch, or do you want redemptive history and the love story to unfold, despite the downside?
John Sander's "The God who risks" will give you a credible, alternate worldview that is more biblical and coherent than yours (IMHO).
To avoid evil, He could have continued in His tranquil triune relations and not created at all. He chose to share His love and life by creating others.
To avoid evil, He could have created a deterministic world, but at the expense of love, relationship, and freedom. He did not do this, so your desire to have a risk free model will not work. Love and relationship involve potential risk, something God was prepared to accept and have a plan to redeem the situation, as He did, in Gen. 3.
You cannot have your cake and eat it too. God could have wiped things out early in the game, but freedom and justice trumped this, for the time. He could go back to triune God alone forever, or start with another Adam-Eve prototype. Sooner or later, the mess would happen again (probable). Do you want Him to keep wiping things out everytime their is a glitch, or do you want redemptive history and the love story to unfold, despite the downside?
John Sander's "The God who risks" will give you a credible, alternate worldview that is more biblical and coherent than yours (IMHO).
RobE
New member
From both our perspectives this is true.
From the position of open theism, evil would have been a new concept for God. Never existing before and created by Satan. Why would God make a plan for the unknown at all? Please don't skip over this statement when you read this response. The o.v. states that God is often astonished at the actions of His creations when they excercise their free will. Without foresight planning isn't an option.
This speculation of open theists is unsubstantiated.
Again, how would He plan? I make my plans based upon my foresight of outcomes. Often my vision of the future is wrong because my information is less than perfect. God's knowledge is perfect and therefore what He plans is perfect. Do you understand the connection between complete knowledge and perfect plans?
For what purpose? Since, according to the o.v. God doesn't have the ability to foreknow outcomes; how could He possibly know that Jesus Christ would be found without flaw? This would mean that all of creation would have been at 'risk' when God could simply have removed Lucifer or the tree to avoid this dilemna.
Let's just ignore the prophecies regarding the sufficiency of Jesus Christ which were made as early as Genesis and throw this risk factor into the mix. Also let's quit assuming that God foreknew where creation was going since that would require foreknowledge. How is any purpose achieved without foreknowing what results you want, what those results will yield, etc......
I'm sure John Sanders is a good guy, but He isn't an Aquinas, Augustine, Calvin, Molina, Luther, etc.....
Remember that there wasn't TV(Star Trek, Babylon V, The Matrix) when they lived, so they devoted a little more time to theology than the average pastor nowadays does. Also their views weren't inundated and shaded by modernism, humanism, and the myriad other godless beliefs that permeate our society today. Godlessness has existed since Adam, but in our society it seems to be embraced. Sander's, I assume, is part of this society.
I digress.
Don't underestimate God's great wisdom and intelligence. You seem to think that God cannot extrapolate possible outcomes and plan for contingencies and predict probabilities (even insurance companies and weathermen can do this statistically; sociology also shows that group behavior is predictable, even if individual behavior is not). He is able to do these things without foreseeing possibilities as actualities like watching a completed movie. He can operate in real time. We base many of our finite decisions on our limited ability to know consequences, outcomes, etc. The universe has order and complexity without being fixed in advance. There are parameters and God knows all possible objects that are knowable. He also correctly distinguishes the reality of past, present, future, possible vs actual, necessary vs contingent, etc.
I think you have a mental block or are just mental.
I think you have a mental block or are just mental.
themuzicman
Well-known member
Not editing necessary. That's simply the context.
LOL... the Great Theologian Joni?
If one uses Calvinist colored glasses, that's how you'd exegete it. Once you take those glasses off, we see that God responded to the evil intent of the brothers by bringing Joseph to a place where he could save his family.
If you actually read the story, you don't see God's actions in the story until after Joseph is sold into slavery.
Muz
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