Will Duffy YouTube Debate v CJ Borns Open Theism 11/23/19

Bob Enyart

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Sat nite open theism YouTube debate & you're invited! DBC member Will Duffy, after debating popular theologian Matt Slick last year, will again debate Is Open Theism Biblical?, now against newcomer CJ Borns. You can keep updated with any changing details at https://opentheism.org tune and view the live YouTube debate at https://youtu.be/Yjk664I4e4E.

 

Derf

Well-known member
can they both be right ?
can they both be wrong ?
If Will is an Open Theist, and CJ is a Calvinist, then both being wrong should lead one to Arminianism.

If both are right, it will lead one to confusion (otherwise known as a less-than-5-point Calvinist).

I suppose that two opposing views can both be wrong, but never both be right. I was presented with such a question once before by a non-believer that said that existence of multiple opposing views on God (like Hinduism vs Paganism vs Islam vs Christianity) mean that none are right, which is an obvious fallacy.

I listened to the first part of the debate, and Will did a good job. CJ admitted up front that this is his first debate, and it showed. He'll get better, just as Will has gotten better. I just hope he listens more to the opposing view while trying to defend his own. It's pretty rare that anyone in a debate like this ever admits being wrong about anything. And it seems that getting to be stronger debater on a wrong position is actually bad for the holder of such a position, whatever the position is.

I feel kind of bad arguing Open Theism against Settled Theists, because the Open view is really pretty easy to justify (which was one of Will's arguments). I think I could argue Calvinism, but it would be a hollow victory. Who would be swayed? (Yes, I know, that's a caricature of Calvinism.)
 

way 2 go

Well-known member
If Will is an Open Theist, and CJ is a Calvinist, then both being wrong should lead one to Arminianism.

If both are right, it will lead one to confusion (otherwise known as a less-than-5-point Calvinist).

I suppose that two opposing views can both be wrong, but never both be right. I was presented with such a question once before by a non-believer that said that existence of multiple opposing views on God (like Hinduism vs Paganism vs Islam vs Christianity) mean that none are right, which is an obvious fallacy.

I listened to the first part of the debate, and Will did a good job. CJ admitted up front that this is his first debate, and it showed. He'll get better, just as Will has gotten better. I just hope he listens more to the opposing view while trying to defend his own. It's pretty rare that anyone in a debate like this ever admits being wrong about anything. And it seems that getting to be stronger debater on a wrong position is actually bad for the holder of such a position, whatever the position is.

I feel kind of bad arguing Open Theism against Settled Theists, because the Open view is really pretty easy to justify (which was one of Will's arguments). I think I could argue Calvinism, but it would be a hollow victory. Who would be swayed? (Yes, I know, that's a caricature of Calvinism.)

I'm somewhere in between settled & open

example the book of revelation

Rev 16:8 And the fourth angel poured out his vial onto the sun. And it was given to him to burn men with fire.
Rev 16:9 And men were burned with great heat. And they blasphemed the name of God, He having authority over these plagues. And they did not repent in order to give Him glory.

the Judgement God is not guessing at that we all know but

open theism says God is guessing that "they did not repent" result
 

Derf

Well-known member
Ok, I finished listening. I appreciated Will's grasp of the Open Theism arguments. And I appreciated CJ's openness to hear Will's arguments and try to respond to them. I think most books I've read arguing against OT, the authors start out trying to give a good representation of the OT view they disagree with, but then they argue against a different view of it. CJ seemed to genuinely not understand some of Will's argument, and he discussed them well.
 

Clete

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open theist have God in their image who is really smart but guessing .

Calvinist have God in a box called fate with no choices .

God does not guess.

If you're going to reject something, why not reject it for what it actually teaches?

Calvinists do not object to the concept of fate, in fact I think it was Calvin himself that said so (I'll have to look that up to confirm) but there is not one single Open Theist who teaches or even thinks that God guesses His way through existence. That is a mischaracterization in the extreme. If it was intentional then I count it as a lie (as does God).

I don't understand the motive of making such statements in the first place. Who is it that you're trying to convince?
 

way 2 go

Well-known member
God does not guess.

If you're going to reject something, why not reject it for what it actually teaches?

open theism teaches God guesses

open theism accuses calvinism of having a god that is a stone idol
while
open theism has a god created in mans image

sorry I do not agree with open theism or calvinism
 

Clete

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open theism teaches God guesses
No, it absolutely does not!

Who told you that? Are you making it up or what?

open theism accuses calvinism of having a god that is a stone idol
while
open theism has a god created in mans image
When open theists make such an accusation, it is because Calvinists insist that God cannot change in any way whatsoever. Their entire doctrine is, in fact, built upon that single premise. A notion that I can prove and which they do not deny. Well, some of them do but only because of ignorance not because they disagree with the Calvinist teaching of Immutability.

On what premise do you make this ridiculous "God guesses" accusation? Is there any basis for it at all or is it something you just need to make yourself feel better about not being able to refute it's real teachings?

sorry I do not agree with open theism or calvinism
Whoopy! Want a cookie?!

If you're rejecting open theism on the basis that it teaches that "God guesses" then you're haven't rejected Open Theism or any other Christian doctrine that I've ever heard of before.

As I said before, if you're going to reject something why not reject it for what it actually teaches?
 

Ktoyou

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Hall of Fame
[h=1]They both had some good points, yet Will was the better speaker. Will Duffy surly won that debate! Anyone disagree?:wave:[/h]
 

way 2 go

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No, it absolutely does not!

Who told you that? Are you making it up or what?


When open theists make such an accusation, it is because Calvinists insist that God cannot change in any way whatsoever. Their entire doctrine is, in fact, built upon that single premise. A notion that I can prove and which they do not deny. Well, some of them do but only because of ignorance not because they disagree with the Calvinist teaching of Immutability.
.

the whole premise of open theism is God guesses

On what premise do you make this ridiculous "God guesses" accusation? Is there any basis for it at all or is it something you just need to make yourself feel better about not being able to refute it's real teachings?

here is a guess in the open theism view , God may have an angel pour out his vial
& the people may react the way God is guessing they will open theism isn't sure as the future is open

Rev 16:8 And the fourth angel poured out his vial onto the sun. And it was given to him to burn men with fire.
Rev 16:9 And men were burned with great heat. And they blasphemed the name of God, He having authority over these plagues. And they did not repent in order to give Him glory.




Whoopy! Want a cookie?!

giphy.gif
 

Clete

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.

the whole premise of open theism is God guesses
Saying it doesn't make it so.

here is a guess in the open theism view , God may have an angel pour out his vial
& the people may react the way God is guessing they will open theism isn't sure as the future is open

Rev 16:8 And the fourth angel poured out his vial onto the sun. And it was given to him to burn men with fire.
Rev 16:9 And men were burned with great heat. And they blasphemed the name of God, He having authority over these plagues. And they did not repent in order to give Him glory.
So you're basically just lying then. I could have "guessed" as much.

You have at least several problems with this simply silly line of reasoning...

1. On just a pure definition of the words being used basis, the fact that not every prophecy will come to pass does not mean that God is guessing. That isn't what the word 'guess' means.

2. God doesn't want all of His prophecies to come to pass. In a great many cases, that's the point of making the prophecy.

3. There is biblical example after biblical example of God making predictive prophecies that did not come to pass.

4. God explicitly explains, in no uncertain terms, that His prophecies may not come to pass and why.

5. The fact that some predictive prophecy does not come to pass is in no way "the whole premise of open theism".

6. Lying is a sin and when you intentionally misrepresent something so as to deceive your audience into rejecting it based on your deception, that is a lie - by definition.

7. When you persist in your deception after having been directly confronted and refuted, as I now "guess" you will gleefully do, your sin is compounded.

8. You will give an account for every idle word you speak on judgment day. My recommendation is that if you want to reject open theism, you'd better do so honestly. It will be better for you in the long run.
 

way 2 go

Well-known member
So you're basically just lying then. I could have "guessed" as much.


You have at least several problems with this simply silly line of reasoning...

1. On just a pure definition of the words being used basis, the fact that not every prophecy will come to pass does not mean that God is guessing. That isn't what the word 'guess' means.

2. God doesn't want all of His prophecies to come to pass. In a great many cases, that's the point of making the prophecy.

3. There is biblical example after biblical example of God making predictive prophecies that did not come to pass.

not lying , just pointing out the fact that open theism has God guessing

here is a guess in the open theism view , God may have an angel pour out his vial
& the people may react the way God is guessing they will
open theism isn't sure as the future is open
and your point 3 admits this fact

Rev 16:8 And the fourth angel poured out his vial onto the sun. And it was given to him to burn men with fire.
Rev 16:9 And men were burned with great heat. And they blasphemed the name of God, He having authority over these plagues. And they did not repent in order to give Him glory.
 

Derf

Well-known member
[h=1]They both had some good points, yet Will was the better speaker. Will Duffy surly won that debate! Anyone disagree?:wave:[/h]

I don't think the victory should be awarded based on who's the better speaker. CJ spoke well, but he didn't understand the consequences of his own theology.
 

Clete

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not lying , just pointing out the fact that open theism has God guessing
You are a liar. I am an Open Theist and I'm telling you God does not guess. I do not believe it, no open theist I've ever read believes it and nothing that we do believe can be rightly construed to be God guessing unless the person so construing is intentionally mischaracterizing the doctrine and making a straw man argument. In short - lying about it.

here is a guess in the open theism view , God may have an angel pour out his vial
& the people may react the way God is guessing they will
open theism isn't sure as the future is open
and your point 3 admits this fact

Rev 16:8 And the fourth angel poured out his vial onto the sun. And it was given to him to burn men with fire.
Rev 16:9 And men were burned with great heat. And they blasphemed the name of God, He having authority over these plagues. And they did not repent in order to give Him glory.
And this proves what I just said. This is nothing more than a straw man argument created from an intentional mischaracterization of what we believe and teach.

First of all, this is not what it means to guess but that's an ancillary point which I hesitate to even make because it tacitly grants your premise that "God may have an angel pour out his vial
& the people may react the way God is guessing they will". That entire premise is flatly false. God is flat out not guessing about how they will react - period. There is no definition of the word "guess" that would make that a true statement.

It is however quite completely true that there is a possibility that God will not punish Israel as per Revelation 16 (and elsewhere) just as it is also possible that God may begin His punishments and then stop depending on how those being punished react to the punishment. But this is not a matter of guessing, it is a matter of love, wisdom, justice and mercy (yes, both justice AND mercy).

God Himself - GOD HIMSELF - said that He may or may not punish/bless any nation that He says that He going to punish/bless.

Jeremiah 18:7 The instant I speak concerning a nation and concerning a kingdom, to pluck up, to pull down, and to destroy it, 8 if that nation against whom I have spoken turns from its evil, I will repent of the disaster that I thought to bring upon it. 9 And the instant I speak concerning a nation and concerning a kingdom, to build and to plant it, 10 if it does evil in My sight so that it does not obey My voice, then I will repent concerning the good with which I said I would benefit it.

Now read that passage! Don't just skip over it. Read it! THAT is the open theist's belief concerning any predictive prophesy of God's concerning either the punish or blessing of Israel or any other nation. It's not one bit more complicated than that. If you do evil, God will not bless you and if you repent God will not punish you. Easy! Even a child can understand that!

So, the question now is, will you repent of your lies or will you persist in them?

Clete
 

way 2 go

Well-known member
You are a liar. I am an Open Theist and I'm telling you God does not guess. I do not believe it, no open theist I've ever read believes it and nothing that we do believe can be rightly construed to be God guessing unless the person so construing is intentionally mischaracterizing the doctrine and making a straw man argument. In short - lying about it.

a Calvinist does not believe God is stone idol but that is what open theist say Calvinist believe every time
do open theist say God is guessing, of course not , but it is the natural conclusion of what open theist teach


And this proves what I just said. This is nothing more than a straw man argument created from an intentional mischaracterization of what we believe and teach.

not mischaracterization but natural conclusion

First of all, this is not what it means to guess but that's an ancillary point which I hesitate to even make because it tacitly grants your premise that "God may have an angel pour out his vial
& the people may react the way God is guessing they will". That entire premise is flatly false. God is flat out not guessing about how they will react - period. There is no definition of the word "guess" that would make that a true statement.

It is however quite completely true that there is a possibility that God will not punish Israel as per Revelation 16 (and elsewhere) just as it is also possible that God may begin His punishments and then stop depending on how those being punished react to the punishment. But this is not a matter of guessing, it is a matter of love, wisdom, justice and mercy (yes, both justice AND mercy).


sooo not guessing but then you say could be guessing .



God Himself - GOD HIMSELF - said that He may or may not punish/bless any nation that He says that He going to punish/bless.

Jeremiah 18:7 The instant I speak concerning a nation and concerning a kingdom, to pluck up, to pull down, and to destroy it, 8 if that nation against whom I have spoken turns from its evil, I will repent of the disaster that I thought to bring upon it. 9 And the instant I speak concerning a nation and concerning a kingdom, to build and to plant it, 10 if it does evil in My sight so that it does not obey My voice, then I will repent concerning the good with which I said I would benefit it.

Now read that passage! Don't just skip over it. Read it! THAT is the open theist's belief concerning any predictive prophesy of God's concerning either the punish or blessing of Israel or any other nation. It's not one bit more complicated than that. If you do evil, God will not bless you and if you repent God will not punish you. Easy! Even a child can understand that!

So, the question now is, will you repent of your lies or will you persist in them?

Clete
no lies to repent of .

God is prophesying the punishment and the unrepentance
and you an open theist say God is guessing that he may or may not punish & they may or may not repent.

Rev 16:8 And the fourth angel poured out his vial onto the sun. And it was given to him to burn men with fire.
Rev 16:9 And men were burned with great heat. And they blasphemed the name of God, He having authority over these plagues. And they did not repent in order to give Him glory.
 

Clete

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a Calvinist does not believe God is stone idol but that is what open theist say Calvinist believe every time
Not every time but when we do it is not only based upon but almost always explained that a God that cannot change in any way whatsoever is describing a stone idol not a living, dynamic, loving God who becomes a human man so as to die and then rise from the dead.

In other words, it is not an intentional, made up out of whole clothe, total straw man argument where we actually are trying to make people believe that Calvinists ACTUALLY have idols made of rock in the living rooms and at their churches.

What you are doing is something entirely different. You actually want people to believe that open theism teaches that God has no idea what anyone is going to do and that it's little more than a comic coin toss whether His prophecies will come to pass or not while in reality open theists actually believe the opposite and take the bible to mean precisely what it says that calls the end from the beginning.

do open theist say God is guessing, of course not , but it is the natural conclusion of what open theist teach
No, it absolutely is not!

When you make plans to go on vacation and you book reservations on a cruse ship for next June and then in February the ship you thought you were going to Belize on ends up catching fire and sinking to the bottom of the Gulf of Mexico, is it in ANY WAY accurate to say that you had been guessing about which ship you were going to be taking the cruise on?

Now that's an example from a human perspective but that only strengthens the argument because we humans don't have access to 1% of the information that God has nor do we have the power to protect cruise ships from accidental fires and sinking the way God could if He chose to do so and yet it STILL is not accurate to call what we were doing "guessing". That just isn't what it means to guess!

What's more is that YOU KNOW that this isn't what it means to guess and you make the accusation anyway and that's why it's a lie.

not mischaracterization but natural conclusion
Liar

sooo not guessing but then you say could be guessing .
No! The potential for circumstances to change and therefore your intended plan of action to change with it is not at all what it means to be guessing and you know it!

no lies to repent of .
Saying it doesn't make it so!

God is prophesying the punishment and the unrepentance

No, He isn't! He says IF not WHEN. IF the repent then so will He. IF they do not repent then the punishment will commence as prophesied.

Jonah prophesied that Nineveh would be destroyed in forty days. The entire prophesy is I think something like five words in the original language. There was no mention of repentance to mention of potential reprieve. God did NOT prophesy both the punishment and the repentance as you claim but only the destruction of Nineveh in forty days. Forty-one days later, Nineveh is still standing and thriving and in better shape than ever before because God did not do that which He said He would do in response to Nineveh's repentance.

Jonah 3:10 Then God saw their works, that they turned from their evil way; and God repented from the disaster that He had said He would bring upon them, and He did not do it.

and you an open theist say God is guessing that he may or may not punish & they may or may not repent.
You are a liar!

I have never said any such thing. God absolutely was not guessing and totally would have completely destroyed Nineveh just as He said He would do but didn't because and only because they repented which even Jonah fully expected them to do which is why he refused to go in the first place.

Rev 16:8 And the fourth angel poured out his vial onto the sun. And it was given to him to burn men with fire.
Rev 16:9 And men were burned with great heat. And they blasphemed the name of God, He having authority over these plagues. And they did not repent in order to give Him glory.
This prophecy is under the same sort of conditions as the Nineveh prophecy. If Israel repents then so will God.



The entire book of Jonah is dedicated to telling the story of but one of several biblical prophesies that did not come to pass. You say you reject Calvinism and Open Theism so that leaves little else except some form of Arminianism but when it comes to prophesy and God's foreknowledge, there's not a dimes worth of difference between them and the Calvinists, so how do you explain the prophesies in the bible that did not come to pass?
 

Clete

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I don't think the victory should be awarded based on who's the better speaker. CJ spoke well, but he didn't understand the consequences of his own theology.

Debates are very often won or lost based on how one speaker is perceived over the other.

That may not be the ideal but it is reality. The fact is people are emotional, social and mostly irrational creatures. As such, how one presents themselves to the audience in this style of debate is at least as important as the substance of what is being said.
 

Derf

Well-known member
Debates are very often won or lost based on how one speaker is perceived over the other.

That may not be the ideal but it is reality. The fact is people are emotional, social and mostly irrational creatures. As such, how one presents themselves to the audience in this style of debate is at least as important as the substance of what is being said.

Good points, Clete. You should use this wisdom in your discussions with way 2 go.
 
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