elected4ever
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Bob Hill
Yea and you and god's ruler seem to be the same as they.
ARCHIVE: Open Theism part 1
- Thread starter ChristisKing
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elected4ever said:
The Pharisees rejected God's will and grace. They refused to follow Jesus as the Messiah.
Pastor Hill and I embrace Christ and His finished work. We love Jesus and His Word. Rejecting your subjective interpretations at times is not tantamount to rejecting God's will nor His Word. You seem to have come down with a touch of sozoitis.
RobE
New member
Question for Godrulz
Question for Godrulz
Godrulz,
How does someone being repentent for an action, change the fact of that action? Being sorry for something in NO way diffutes the ability to foresee that same thing. Why do feel that it does? When God approached the time of the flood, he was grieved for those that would be lost. What's the problem?
Did He stop the flood? Did He change His plans? And if He did change one event in history, what makes you think that changed anything else?
Your Brother in Christ,
Rob
Question for Godrulz
godrulz said:
Godrulz,
How does someone being repentent for an action, change the fact of that action? Being sorry for something in NO way diffutes the ability to foresee that same thing. Why do feel that it does? When God approached the time of the flood, he was grieved for those that would be lost. What's the problem?
Did He stop the flood? Did He change His plans? And if He did change one event in history, what makes you think that changed anything else?
Your Brother in Christ,
Rob
Philetus
New member
elected4ever said:
Who was that Masked Man?
Thanks for the honesty and transparency in your statement, Patman. I can identify with that. Then there was the time spent in trying to be the ‘lone ranger’ … you know, being the only righteous defender of truth against all those bad guys who don’t know as much as me and God about everything. Hiding behind a God who has to remain hidden and aloof leads to all kinds of "super hero' inflated egoism. I know, I was the TICK! What a relief to know that you don’t have to hide behind a mask of ‘know it all’ to know Christ. In fact it is so liberating to have this dynamic relationship with God in Christ that it just seems to upset the other inmates to no end. Ooooo … Tonto is going to have to make another trip to town to spy on the cattle rustlers.
I've ordered Boyd and Sanders. Not, because I want to straighten anybody out but because I want to know and experience God in dynamic relationship. That's enough for me. I never could settle for the other. Thank God we don't have to when He offers so much more.
HIHO Silver, Away.
Spooooon!
Waka, Waka, Waka, waka ....
Philetus
RobE said:
God said creation was 'very good'. After the Fall, He was grieved that He even made man. This was a change in God's inner disposition due to a change in circumstances. He foresaw the possibility, not the certainty of the Fall. He created free moral agents, not a meticulous blueprint fulfilled by manipulation and determinism. This resulted in a partially open, partially unknowable future.
Hezekiah and other narratives are examples of the future not being closed and foreknown in advance.
Philetus
New member
godrulz said:
Exactly, if Jonah is peeved at God for changing his mind toward that multitude of individuals who didn't know their right hand from there left (not to mention the cattle). Having grown up with the emphasis on Jonah and the whale, it is a little difficult to shift to see the story in light of the little worm that gets the prophets gourd. Maybe the story is more about bait than fish; more about a relational and loving God seeking and saving the lost.
Help me out here. Is this story about God’s unwillingness to change on his position that unless Nineveh repents it will be destroyed? He seems unwilling to relinquish his determination that Jonah is the one to deliver that message of repentance and deliverance. Jonah finally does so, and then is upset that God actually spares the city and its inhabitants because they repent. Is repentance the watershed issue?
The parallels, to the static view verses the open view of God, are staggering. One question that continues to haunt me is: how can a closed theist who holds to the position of strict election find eternal security in the OSAS doctrine when he/she can’t even be absolutely sure they are elected in the first place? For exzmple: if a Calvinist knows he is saved based on his experience, is that not at least as subjective as the Armenians who they accuse of having the cart before the horse (faith before grace)? If repentance has anything to do with salvation and it is given by God exclusively to the elect, is it then not possible for a not-elect to just hear the Gospel and ‘repent’ from a human desire to be right with God and be self deceived into thinking he/she is saved? In Nineveh's case was Jonah deceived into thinking God was going to destroy it, were the Nivevites deceived into thiking they were actually in danger, or did God change his mind because of their repentance?
It seems at best we can say only ‘questionably saved always saved’. I don’t mean to be argumentative; I sincerely want to see the different points of view accurately. If I’m wrong about the OSAS position please explain.
I know I'm risking a rabbit hole here.
Philetus
I concur that OSAS is specious and Calvinistic. The Bible teaches conditional eternal security. Believers are secure, but this does not preclude the possiblity of falling away/apostasy as the Scriptures warn about. A 'believing unbeliever' is a contradiction in terms. If we are free moral agents, then just as we can move from unbelief to faith, so it is theoretically possible to move from belief to unbelief (as stupid and selfish as it is). Reciprocal love relationships (vs salvation as a metaphysical change) must be freely entered into and maintained. The type of repentant faith that allows us to appropriate His finished work is the type that continues vs ceases in the future. It is not a foregone conclusion that those who start the race will persevere in His grace and finish it. He is faithful, but this does not preclude our will and mind becoming faithless. Just as His influence and grace can be resisted before conversion, so His keeping power and grace can be spurned after conversion.
Bob Hill
TOL Subscriber
Godrulz,
I do not agree with Calvinism in any way, but I cannot agree with your statement, "I concur that OSAS is specious and Calvinistic." I can understand your saying you disagree with with OSAS, but specious? Did you know that specious means "showy, beautiful, plausible as well as "seeming to be good, sound, correct, logical, etc. without really being so.
I know that you are an excellent student of the Word of God, and I agree with most of your posts, but here I am, no Calvinism in me, but I do believe that I am sealed by the Holy Spirit until the day of redemption.
Your Brother in Christ,
Bob
I do not agree with Calvinism in any way, but I cannot agree with your statement, "I concur that OSAS is specious and Calvinistic." I can understand your saying you disagree with with OSAS, but specious? Did you know that specious means "showy, beautiful, plausible as well as "seeming to be good, sound, correct, logical, etc. without really being so.
I know that you are an excellent student of the Word of God, and I agree with most of your posts, but here I am, no Calvinism in me, but I do believe that I am sealed by the Holy Spirit until the day of redemption.
Your Brother in Christ,
Bob
Bob Hill said:
It is unfair for me to say it is specious. I also affirm the security of the believer (conditional vs unconditional...I believe a believer can change their minds and wills and revert to unbelief, forfeiting the promises that only apply to believers, not unbelievers, whether they once believed or not).
It is probably also unfair to say OSAS is exclusively Calvinistic. It seems to me more coherent within that theological view, but it could be plausible in a non-Calvinisitic way, I suppose (most free will theists...Arminians, Wesleyans, Pentecostals, Open Theists, etc. do not affirm OSAS).
If I could emphasize that those who believe are secure in Christ. He will not forsake us. I assume you also appreciate that belief must be continuous, not a one time thing in the distant past with an ongoing life of godless rebellion. I guess my question is what is the mechanism for God ensuring the person perpetually believes in light of free will? (Lucifer and Adam fell from innocence). Is sealing something that gives on fire insurance even if they hate God (though they once loved Him)?
I have commented on the nature of sealing elsewhere. Sorry I am too lazy to do it again. I do not think it has to mean an irreversible sealing.
I am a student, not a scholar of the Word. I doubt I hold a candle to your Bible knowledge and experience. Many great Bible teachers have been wrong on certain points. I humbly suggest that you may be wrong on this point, partially due to a questionable dispensational view or not looking at alternate meanings of some texts. The texts that show our security as believers do not contradict ones that warn about the possibility of apostasy or a believer reverting to unbelief. A different set of warning passages now apply to these critters, though the believer's verses applied to them previously (unless they were not genuine believers).
Bob Hill
TOL Subscriber
Repent, nacham, in the Old Testament. A man called in to our radio program, Biblical Answers, and said an anthropomorphism was used in Genesis 6:5,6 when the Bible says that God repented. When I asked him, “Then, what did God mean when He inspired Moses to write that He repented.” The silence was deafening. That is the question. What did God mean. When I asked him again, he said, “What about Numbers 23:19, “God is not a man, that He should lie, nor a son of man that He should repent. Has He said, and will He not do? Or has He spoken, and will He not make it good?”
Notice, he did not answer the question, and it appears that he could not answer the question about Genesis 6:5,6. Here is Genesis 6:5-7 Then the Lord saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every intent of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually. 6 And the Lord repented [it repented the LORD] that He had made man on the earth, and He was grieved in His heart. 7 So the Lord said, I will destroy man whom I have created from the face of the earth, both man and beast, creeping thing and birds of the air, for I repent that I have made them.”
Why didn’t he want to answer the question? What does the Bible show the meaning of this word is? Let’s read it.
Repent as It Refers to Man. The Hebrew word nagham, as it is used here, means repent or change your mind. Let’s look at the references which use it with men. I will use bold letters to show the translation of nagham.
Ex 13:17 Then it came to pass, when Pharaoh had let the people go, that God did not lead them by way of the land of the Philistines, although that was near; for God said, Lest perhaps the people change their minds when they see war, and return to Egypt.
Job 42:6 Therefore I abhor myself and repent in dust and ashes.
Jer 8:6 I listened and heard, but they do not speak aright. No man repented of his wickedness, saying, what have I done? Everyone turned to his own course, as the horse rushes into the battle.
Jer 31:19 Surely, after my turning, I repented; And after I was instructed, I struck myself on the thigh; I was ashamed, yes, even humiliated, because I bore the reproach of my youth. 20 Is Ephraim My dear son? Is he a pleasant child? For though I spoke against him, I earnestly remember him still; Therefore My heart yearns for him; I will surely have mercy on him, says the Lord.
From these passages it is clear that the word means a change of mind or heart. Man’s repentance seems to arise from fear, conviction of sin, shame, or abhorrence of himself.
Now let’s look at the passages that show repent as it refers to God.
Gen 6:4-9 There were giants on the earth in those days, and also afterward, when the sons of God came in to the daughters of men and they bore children to them. Those were the mighty men who were of old, men of renown. 5 Then the Lord saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every intent of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually. 6 And the Lord repented [it repented the LORD] that He had made man on the earth, and He was grieved in His heart. 7 So the Lord said, I will destroy man whom I have created from the face of the earth, both man and beast, creeping thing and birds of the air, for I repent that I have made them. 8 But Noah found grace in the eyes of the Lord. 9 This is the genealogy of Noah. Noah was a just man, perfect in his generations. Noah walked with God.
Ex 32:9-14 And the Lord said to Moses, I have seen this people, and indeed it is a stiff-necked people! 10 Now therefore, let Me alone, that My wrath may burn hot against them and I may consume them. And I will make of you a great nation. 11 Then Moses pleaded with the Lord his God, and said: Lord, why does Your wrath burn hot against Your people whom You have brought out of the land of Egypt with great power and with a mighty hand? 12 Why should the Egyptians speak, and say, `He brought them out to harm them, to kill them in the mountains, and to consume them from the face of the earth? Turn from Your fierce wrath, and repent from this harm to Your people. 13 Remember Abraham, Isaac, and Israel, Your servants, to whom You swore by Your own self, and said to them, I will multiply your descendants as the stars of heaven; and all this land that I have spoken of I give to your descendants, and they shall inherit it forever. 14 So the Lord repented from the harm which He said He would do to His people.
You can’t get around it. God changed His mind. God repented.
Praise God.
In Christ,
Bob Hill
Notice, he did not answer the question, and it appears that he could not answer the question about Genesis 6:5,6. Here is Genesis 6:5-7 Then the Lord saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every intent of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually. 6 And the Lord repented [it repented the LORD] that He had made man on the earth, and He was grieved in His heart. 7 So the Lord said, I will destroy man whom I have created from the face of the earth, both man and beast, creeping thing and birds of the air, for I repent that I have made them.”
Why didn’t he want to answer the question? What does the Bible show the meaning of this word is? Let’s read it.
Repent as It Refers to Man. The Hebrew word nagham, as it is used here, means repent or change your mind. Let’s look at the references which use it with men. I will use bold letters to show the translation of nagham.
Ex 13:17 Then it came to pass, when Pharaoh had let the people go, that God did not lead them by way of the land of the Philistines, although that was near; for God said, Lest perhaps the people change their minds when they see war, and return to Egypt.
Job 42:6 Therefore I abhor myself and repent in dust and ashes.
Jer 8:6 I listened and heard, but they do not speak aright. No man repented of his wickedness, saying, what have I done? Everyone turned to his own course, as the horse rushes into the battle.
Jer 31:19 Surely, after my turning, I repented; And after I was instructed, I struck myself on the thigh; I was ashamed, yes, even humiliated, because I bore the reproach of my youth. 20 Is Ephraim My dear son? Is he a pleasant child? For though I spoke against him, I earnestly remember him still; Therefore My heart yearns for him; I will surely have mercy on him, says the Lord.
From these passages it is clear that the word means a change of mind or heart. Man’s repentance seems to arise from fear, conviction of sin, shame, or abhorrence of himself.
Now let’s look at the passages that show repent as it refers to God.
Gen 6:4-9 There were giants on the earth in those days, and also afterward, when the sons of God came in to the daughters of men and they bore children to them. Those were the mighty men who were of old, men of renown. 5 Then the Lord saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every intent of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually. 6 And the Lord repented [it repented the LORD] that He had made man on the earth, and He was grieved in His heart. 7 So the Lord said, I will destroy man whom I have created from the face of the earth, both man and beast, creeping thing and birds of the air, for I repent that I have made them. 8 But Noah found grace in the eyes of the Lord. 9 This is the genealogy of Noah. Noah was a just man, perfect in his generations. Noah walked with God.
Ex 32:9-14 And the Lord said to Moses, I have seen this people, and indeed it is a stiff-necked people! 10 Now therefore, let Me alone, that My wrath may burn hot against them and I may consume them. And I will make of you a great nation. 11 Then Moses pleaded with the Lord his God, and said: Lord, why does Your wrath burn hot against Your people whom You have brought out of the land of Egypt with great power and with a mighty hand? 12 Why should the Egyptians speak, and say, `He brought them out to harm them, to kill them in the mountains, and to consume them from the face of the earth? Turn from Your fierce wrath, and repent from this harm to Your people. 13 Remember Abraham, Isaac, and Israel, Your servants, to whom You swore by Your own self, and said to them, I will multiply your descendants as the stars of heaven; and all this land that I have spoken of I give to your descendants, and they shall inherit it forever. 14 So the Lord repented from the harm which He said He would do to His people.
You can’t get around it. God changed His mind. God repented.
Praise God.
In Christ,
Bob Hill
RobE
New member
godrulz said:
Rob said:
You and I being about the only two on this sight that disagree with all five points of TULIP find ourselves on the same side of the fence a lot. The one exception is foreknowledge.
I wonder if you could answer the question in my above quote:
Why do you feel that repentance in anyway diffutes the ability to foresee the future?
Friends,
Rob
Philetus
New member
Good post! Those guys need to know we are reading them and hanging on every word.
I love dictionaries especially the ones we are making up. So this is from the Unabriged Butthead and Bevis Dictionary of new words.
diffutes > 1 a combination of defeats and refutes. Add it to your dictionary margin.
-DERIVATIVES defutters >adverb diffuttees >noun.
-ORIGIN originally in the sense 'busted': from Latin ‘wasted that thought'. :chuckle:
This one how ever solicited an apology that was unwarranted.
[QUOTE Bob: I do not agree with Calvinism in any way, but I cannot agree with your statement, "I concur that OSAS is specious and Calvinistic." I can understand your saying you disagree with with OSAS, but specious? Did you know that specious means "showy, beautiful, plausible as well as "seeming to be good, sound, correct, logical, etc. without really being so.[/QUOTE]
specious >adjective 1 superficially plausible, but actually wrong. 2 misleading in appearance.
-DERIVATIVES speciously >adverb speciousness >noun.
-ORIGIN originally in the sense 'beautiful': from Latin speciosus 'fair, plausible'.
atrol: “OSAS is specious.” If it is not then you must subscribe to it. OSAS may make sense in the context of Calvinism and it seems to be necessary to their over all system. If you reject a future fixed and unchangeable then the view is superficially plausible but actually wrong. It is certainly misleading in appearance; it can’t produce what it promises: confidence and security. It is essential that if God knows ahead of time, then the future is fixed in regards to salvation of the elect and only the elect.
Being sealed is not necessarily the same as being save once and for all. Seals can be broken. Being sealed with the Holy Spirit tomorrow requires the same faith and intentionality that it does today. Just changing the language doesn't make the dog a greek. So, either get a new dictionary Bob or explain how you can hang on to 'eternal security' (as apposed to a ongoing personal covenant relationship) and still be an open theist. Specious means it ain’t as good as it looks and I don't see how any amount of lipstick will make that bull dog beautiful.
Keep up the good stuff. Inquiring minds need to know.
Philetus
Philetus
New member
That's a good question and in my thinking simple foreknowledge of repentance does not in and of it's self close the future. I must ask, "Is the God who has the advantage to see the future in precise and meticulous detail from outside of time have an advantage or disadvantage in relating to his creation in the way Open View believes he does?" Is knowing the future a stumbling block to relating? I think so. Repentance keeps the future open to loving relationship, even from God's perspective (e.g. Moses and the people who God almost destroyed, or even me and the Jesus I almost walked away from.)
That's my 2 cents. I'm eager to hear how Godrulz addresses it. Plow on!
Friends forever,
Philetus
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