James White to Debate Bob Enyart on Open Theism

[PneumaPsucheSoma]

Well, I recommend you personally test GD's responsive spirit to the gospel of grace, plus her words against the saints, as instructed. . . I John 4:1 . . . and discern whether her beliefs conform to the world or to the truths held by the saints of God. John 4:5-6

It won't be a lengthly inquiry . . .

I'm just not on here very much. But Open Theism was one impetus among many that further drove my depth of pursuit for Theology Proper and other things.

If God's Logos was noumeonologically devoid of anything in creation, He isn't God. In no way is God bound by any constraints of creation relative to any activity in creation. God is everywhen. But God is not inherently in time, even in the created everlasting heavenly realm.

Oddly, I'm still not a Calvinist, though I've been called one more often in the last few days than ever before. I'm not sure how that hits ya.

 

[glorydaz]

Well, I recommend you personally test GD's responsive spirit to the gospel of grace, plus her words against the saints, as instructed. . . I John 4:1 . . . and discern whether her beliefs conform to the world or to the truths held by the saints of God. John 4:5-6

It won't be a lengthly inquiry . . .

Nang has a slight case of jealousy. When someone else gets a compliment, her claws come out. :chuckle:

 

[glorydaz]

Her views on sin and redemption, though I've not read much.



I haven't ever visited ANY of the Open Theism threads until this one. I have no idea who is and isn't an Open Theist, but I'm learning.

Open Theism is literally impossible. It's a concept of man's mind, and largely from the high-context nature of the English language that passively promotes a human logos without it being grounded in God's Rhema.

That's a whole 'nudder teaching, but it's vital.

Oh, am I an open theist? I get called all kinds of things on this forum.

 

[PneumaPsucheSoma]

Ah, so you think you are not able to exhibit some PRIDE on occasion? What about when you make assumptions about another's understanding. What about when you assume you know the very logic another employs. You never make mistakes? Really?

I'm not sure how you got THAT out of what was said. But I'm not referring to you or anyone personally, even though it's directed in conversation.

What I exhaustively understand is the effect of language, especially English, on the logos of man relative to God's Rhema. There are patterns to that, and I can recognize them quickly in others' perspectives.

I do know the logic others employ, because I've endeavored to do so, and by the Spirit. It's not a bad thing. There's always more of a "tone" online than in person. I'm a bit matter-of-fact, and there's always some tension in these convos.

Gnosis always presumes epignosis is puffed up. But epignosis abounds from love, which is not puffed up.

That's nice. Perhaps knowing the big words doesn't mean we don't know the truth behind those big words. :think:

Ummm... wut? Maybe there's an extra or missing don't in there. But i copiously know the depths of definition and application for any semantic I use.

Okay, now I can confirm you need to fight that old spiritual pride.....lest you be given a thorn in the flesh, as Paul was. Put it off, and you'd be very interesting to talk to. Until then, the rest of your post is nothing more than a drip drip drip in the middle of the night.

Well... I think if you sat down and had access to a brief exegetical teaching series, you'd have an epiphany that would change your last paragraph.

Anyway... I'm not too inclined to debate much on the Open Theism topic. It has little appeal to me. From what I've seen, few Open Theists are ever going to abandon their view.

I was just trying to provide the information relative to God's essence versus God's energies, since it's one of the pillar subjects of historical Christianity that has been tossed out of modern understanding in the Western churches.

It really has to begin there, but most already have a measure of faith wrapped around something else and won't go there. I'm actually fine with that.

 

[PneumaPsucheSoma]

Oh, am I an open theist?

I don't know. It certainly seems so in the sense you're arguing for change relative to God. Are you?

I get called all kinds of things on this forum.

It's not a contest, but I'm right there with you, I think.


My whole point was to inject the foundation of the topic which is completely missing while everyone goes about their own logistical shenanigans.

If people knew the extent of coercive patterning of thought to the English language, they'd be screaming about it. But it's hard to go there, because it provokes cognitive dissonance.

High-context languages are a tool of Babel to this day, actually more than ever. Few even consider it as a factor because it's sub-cognitive and subtle.

 

[PneumaPsucheSoma]

Nang has a slight case of jealousy. When someone else gets a compliment, her claws come out. :chuckle:

I love Nang. She rocks. We had an abysmal start, but I consider her a friend. Claws and all, if that's included.

You guys evidently have some history.:think:

 

[Nang]

I'm just not on here very much. But Open Theism was one impetus among many that further drove my depth of pursuit for Theology Proper and other things.

Yep . . my spiritual attraction and motivation behind all responses, too.

If God's Logos was noumeonologically devoid of anything in creation, He isn't God.

Heh . . . it surprises me that despite my ignorance of all your linguistics, I am beginning to understand your message.

In no way is God bound by any constraints of creation relative to any activity in creation. God is everywhen. But God is not inherently in time, even in the created everlasting heavenly realm.

The above is still beyond me, but perhaps you will be provided the chance and opportunity to expand further regarding that proposition.

Oddly, I'm still not a Calvinist, though I've been called one more often in the last few days than ever before. I'm not sure how that hits ya.

Does not "hit me" at all . . . being a Scripturalist, myself and which I would dare to believe is your spiritual foundation . . . exceeds lesser labels.

Labels do not matter to me . . . I really do not like being called a "Calvinist," although I understand it is a convenient way to identify my REFORMED beliefs (in opposition to Arminianism and free-will decisional false gospels of all sorts).

 

[Nang]

I love Nang. She rocks. We had an abysmal start, but I consider her a friend. Claws and all, if that's included.
:

That bad start was all due to my ignorant and stubborn limitations . . but since, the Lord has used your unique witness to validate the simple faith He has given me.

In words and language I would have never known, apart from your persistent witness.

I am appreciative of you, and very sorry for many of my early knee-jerk responses.

You have gained a student, here . . .

Bless you, dear brother in Christ.

Nang

 

[PneumaPsucheSoma]

Yep . . my spiritual attraction and motivation behind all responses, too.

I readily believe that. You have a heart for truth.

Heh . . . it surprises me that despite my ignorance of all your linguistics, I am beginning to understand your message.

The vocab is always the initial obstacle. When I'm teaching live, the first few sessions are an adjustment for everyone with lotsa doe-eyes. But without exception, after three or four 2-hour teachings, everyone is laughing about the shift and learning curve.

It's because I've divested myself of the high-context English patterns and continue to do so. Within 4 to 6 sessions, others are having their understanding changed.

The English language is killing the Gospel, aided and abetted by all the rampant silliness and schizm.

The above is still beyond me, but perhaps you will be provided the chance and opportunity to expand further regarding that proposition.

Basically, if anything else is eternal and uncreated, it's God and He's not. Heaven is created. Heaven has some kind of time that is endless, but had to have a beginning. Everlasting (aionios) is not eternal (aidios). In geometric parlance, everlasting is a ray and eternal is a line. Temporal is a line segment.

There are three considerations, while all historical formulations have only truly considered two. St. Thomas Aquinas provides the clearest and blatant exmaple of the gloss, by insisting there are two "kinds" of eternity.

But God created all where, when, what. In fact, God created the "matrix" of whereness, whenness, and whatness FOR all where, when, and what.

God is inherently Self-existent, so there was nothing else but God. God didn't create the cosmos from heaven and eternity. God created heaven and eternity along with the cosmos. He wasn't "in" heaven or "in" eternity when He spoke to create. The invisible things were created along with the visible. Angels aren't "in" God, they're in a place as a where that God created; and there are whens and whats and whos there (there is a where) for all everlasting.

God doesn't need a realm to Self-exist. That realm would then be ontologically divine or superior to the divine and containing and constraining it. God can't inherently be "where" or "when", even in eternity as the everlasting heavenly property of time without end. That had a beginning. An inception. Only God (and His Logos and Pneuma) had no inception.

Eternality is an attribute of God, not eternity. This is all a product of the high-context English language mis-shaping thought and limiting it to concept.

Does not "hit me" at all . . . being a Scripturalist, myself and which I would dare to believe is your spiritual foundation . . . exceeds lesser labels.

Agreed. Scripturalist, I like.

Labels do not matter to me . . . I really do not like being called a "Calvinist," although I understand it is a convenient way to identify my REFORMED beliefs (in opposition to Arminianism and free-will decisional false gospels of all sorts).

Yes. I just still see all that as dichotomies. Synergistic Monergism. LOL.

 

[glorydaz]

That bad start was all due to my ignorant and stubborn limitations . . but since, the Lord has used your unique witness to validate the simple faith He has given me.

In words and language I would have never known, apart from your persistent witness.

I am appreciative of you, and very sorry for many of my early knee-jerk responses.

You have gained a student, here . . .

Bless you, dear brother in Christ.

Nang

Oh no, Nang has been here and done that before. Not a good sign. :juggle:

 

[glorydaz]

I don't know. It certainly seems so in the sense you're arguing for change relative to God. Are you?



It's not a contest, but I'm right there with you, I think.


My whole point was to inject the foundation of the topic which is completely missing while everyone goes about their own logistical shenanigans.

If people knew the extent of coercive patterning of thought to the English language, they'd be screaming about it. But it's hard to go there, because it provokes cognitive dissonance.

High-context languages are a tool of Babel to this day, actually more than ever. Few even consider it as a factor because it's sub-cognitive and subtle.

Well, you can sit around and talk to yourself, or find an enamored student like you've found in Nang, OR you could talk to the people in the language they are comfortable in. I'm never impressed by uppity city folks who throw out French at every turn, either. But, then, that's me.

 

[PneumaPsucheSoma]

That bad start was all due to my ignorant and stubborn limitations . . but since, the Lord has used your unique witness to validate the simple faith He has given me.

In words and language I would have never known, apart from your persistent witness.

I am appreciative of you, and very sorry for many of my early knee-jerk responses.

You have gained a student, here . . .

Bless you, dear brother in Christ.

Nang

SO humbling and edifying. I know how difficult it is to hear me, especially when I'm in full defense posture over semantics and criticism of vocab.

At times, it's a bit like being Wilson the volleyball on Castaway. LOL.

One of the most constructive times of my life was the fellowship with Arsenios on that lengthy thread. I think that may have been a turning point for you about me and my vocab.

If people could truly hear of hypostasis and prosopon, and rhema and logos, and other pairings and groupings of in-depth low-context teaching from the Greek, it would change their life and in short order.

Through the continuing results of Babel, the enemy has masked, limited, and stolen God's Rhema from language. And few consider it or how it's even possible. But that's why my odd mixture of Greek with English is so off-putting. Yet it starts to build a grid for a true foundation.

English depends upon context and peripheral grammatical parts at the expense of depth to the semantics. So much so that few can define many words, and it becomes passive and normal to live by logical concepts rather than any true literality or depth of meaning.

I just try to strip that all away and provide foundational depth with low-context semantics defined from the Greek.

Most professing believers don't really know what grace and faith and hope and love and most other core underpinnings of the faith mean in their true depth. It's all vague and conceptual in high-context mode.

Lanuage sculpts minds. That's logos, and it establishes a competing rhema to God's own as a false foundation of all thought and expression. There's no underlying substantial reality of existence (hypostasis) to it, so it contributes to the false prosopon which God doesn't accept.

It's great riding weather this year, BTW. i hope you and hubster are enjoying it.

 

[glorydaz]

I love Nang. She rocks. We had an abysmal start, but I consider her a friend. Claws and all, if that's included.

You guys evidently have some history.:think:

Yeah, sure do. There was a time when we talked about how nice it would be sitting around her kitchen table having a cup of coffee, and then she just got too blamed big for her own britches. Now, with you as her new "mentor", she will be flat out insufferable. Oh well, it seems she's always gotta have someone to look up to. Better you than Truster, I guess. :crackup:

 

[PneumaPsucheSoma]

Well, you can sit around and talk to yourself, or find an enamored student like you've found in Nang, OR you could talk to the people in the language they are comfortable in. I'm never impressed by uppity city folks who throw out French at every turn, either. But, then, that's me.

I'm not looking to impress anyone. I'm a corpse, my old man reckoned dead by faith and crucified with Christ. I've been translated into the kingdom of God's dear Son. Seated in heavenly places in Christ Jesus. I'm not waiting for the sweet by and by.

But why do you have to presume someone "uppity" if they learn the original language of scripture with definitions that English can't touch for clarity?

The English language is a huge obstacle for understanding. It's a pattern thing, not a content thing. It needs to be presented in a low-context format.

This thread is a perfect example. Open Theists are compelled and controlled by language and concept more than any ability to search for truth beyond those limitations.

It's well worth the effort to access what I'm saying, even with the off-putting nature of the vocab in Greek, etc.

It's about Babel... today. You'd be livid if you knew how mind-sculpting language is. You'd feel violated, and rightly so. But everyone loves their native tongue because it's familiar.

Since I'm literally conformed to God's Rhema, it's difficult for me to go back to shallow and nebulous English expression. It's maddening enough to see the logistical patterns of others and see the "ceiling" for their understanding.

 

[PneumaPsucheSoma]

Yeah, sure do. There was a time when we talked about how nice it would be sitting around her kitchen table having a cup of coffee, and then she just got too blamed big for her own britches. Now, with you as her new "mentor", she will be flat out insufferable. Oh well, it seems she's always gotta have someone to look up to. Better you than Truster, I guess. :crackup:

I don't really get any of that in much detail. I don't even know who Truster is. I'm not on here much, and most of my time in the past was exclusively on a relative few Theology Proper threads.

Why can't you guys make amends?

And I'm nobody's mentor in any sense of mastery. My role is of servitude to the body.

 

[Ask Mr. Religion]

So, are you saying God does change His mind depending on the actions of men OR it's important not do think that?

It is important to not think God changes His mind, as do the Pelagians and Arminians that God is subject to change, but not indeed in His Being, but in His knowledge and will, so that His decisions are to a great extent dependent on the actions of man.

Moreover, it is important to not think as do the unsettled theists (they think future is open, so they are unsettled) who, in addition to the above, go further to include God changing in His being versus the God who is (Exodus 3:14).

AMR

 

[Ask Mr. Religion]

You say this as if you're including any possible change, but then in response to Vinny, you speak of neutral change. So, ultimately, no -- you have contradicted yourself.

Better re-read my post, which clearly implies claiming "neutral change" is a fool's errand--tilting at windmills.

As has been said many times, we do not claim the incarnation changed God's being or perfection -- just that it is a change.

When you all get around to detailing what a change means in this sense you will be on your way to real discussion. As I have stated, change means something accreted or diminished. Change cannot mean a no-thing as if nothing took place. This notion of change for you and others likely stems from the liberty of indifference assumed in libertarian free will, that is, a person can choose to do otherwise, as if the will is neutral from what he or she is inclined to choose. Such a view is the eternal frozen pose, choosing not to choose, as it were.

The Reformed hold that we only possess the liberty of spontaneity, choosing according to our inclinations when we so choose. These inclinations incline the will. God does not do what He has not willed to do from eternity. When God institutes a change in His dealings with men, He describes His course of conduct as "repenting" to accommodate our finite understanding of His perfections and transcendence. It is not that He has changed in His being/attributes, will, counsel, and so on, as if God were mutable. God is not changing His mind, for as I have stated, He has willed to do what He does from eternity. All things are comprehended in His eternal decree. We are mutable, earthy. God is not. God's purpose is fixed, His will stable, His word is sure. This permanence of God guarantees the fulfillment of His promises.

His inclinations are always perfectly expressed in His will. The Incarnation was no change in God, for He willed it from eternity. Contra, Bob Enyart's "God can create a new song?" canard, any new song would be new to us, but not to God, who would have willed to do so from eternity. The plain facts are that God does not deliberate, for His thoughts are not discursive as are the thoughts of His created moral agents. A contingent God, learning daily from other creatures whose actions He does not genuinely know beforehand,, is not the Scriptural expression of the perfect being, rather but one of the many in the Greek Pantheon. sigh.

AMR

 

[Lighthouse]

I tried to wrap my head around the Calvinist way of thinking, but slamming my head into the wall started to hurt.

 

[Stripe]

When you all get around to detailing what a change means in this sense you will be on your way to real discussion.

It doesn't matter what kind of change the incarnation was, as long as it was some kind of change.

You say all changes must be for better or worse -- so what was it for the incarnation? Or how do you justify saying it was not a change?


From Google Nexus and the TOL app!

 

[Ask Mr. Religion]

What changed within the Godhead? Nothing.

Human nature was taken up and not confused, mixed, etc., with the Divine Logos that assumed this human nature. There is a reason it is called a hypostatic union so as to protect from the heresies that arose around the aspects of the Incarnation.

Physical revelations of the divinity of the Godhead abound within Scripture. These in no way imply some changes are taking place. You are trying to play fast and loose with "change" when it is clear that Bob Enyart wanted to make this change something substantive in the debate with White for it is the stated position of the open theist that God can and does change His mind as He learns more from the actions of His created moral agents. Backpeddling in hopes of rehabilitating this "God is becoming" position to mean something innocuous cannot acquit the open theist from their very public positions.

AMR