ARCHIVE: Open Theism part 1

[themuzicman]

Please show me where in the scriptures it speaks of "Freedom of Will" vs. "Freedom of ability". Now the terms of grace and deliverance are found throughout (which were the terms I decided to use in place of freedom); freedom, however, is not a word to be found in the scriptures. You can find it in translations, but you will not find it in the scriptures themselves. Freedom (as in free-will) is a term used in our time that stems from the Enlightenment where all questions of philosophy, politics, religion, ethics, and the like were centered in humanity. It is the liberalism of modernity that draws "freedom" into the discussion of Christianity. Christians before this spoke of Grace and deliverance; they did not speak of the free-will of men. They spoke of volition, but not free-will.

Well, the first hint of Christian determinism (which is a specific denial of free will) is Augustine in the 6th century, so this issue goes back much further then the enlightenment.

This issue rages on with Molina and Arminius and Calvin, again all pre-Enlightenment.

In fact, you've already given one example of God asking for a free will decision in "I lay before you life and blessing and death and cursing. Choose life." The ability to choose between the two (even with the emploring of God to choose life) is clearly a free will decision.

Moving into the New Testament, we see in John 6:27-29 that Jesus tells those asking the question that they should believe in the one that the Father sent. Again, they must choose to believe.

In John 6:45, we get a clearer picture of what "drawing" is, in that the Father teaches, and we must 'hear and learn'. Those, again, are our free choices, to hear and learn or to not hear and learn.

You're probably looking for the word rather than the concepts, but these are the concepts of free will in scripture.

On a different note this problem may have a lot to do with the collapse of the subjunctive in English into the indicative mood. In the English language we no longer have the ability to relate ideas in a strongly dependant manner (that is through an inflected form of the verb). The New Testament (and the Old for that matter) had a language that could speak in the subjunctive. "For God so loved the world" (indicative) "that he gave his only Son" (indicative), then we get to the hina clause, which moves us into the subjective mood, "that whoever might believe into him...." (subjunctive). When God acts in the scriptures, that action is expressed in the indicative (non-contingent) mood. When humans act they are always acting in responsive (i.e. contingent) ways. It is imbedded in the very language of the scriptures, and does not translate well into the English (because the English has all but lost the subjunctive mood).

I've studied Greek at the master's level. I know what you're taling about.

So, you're saying that there are no indicative verbs that describe human actions?

Don't accuse me of being unaware of the language of the scriptures. I am much more aware of their language than most North American Christians. That is not to say that I have mastered the scriptures, but it is to say that they have mastered me, drawing me out of the sinful context of modernity, and English/Western centeredness, in which I have been imbedded, and are calling me to live in obedience to God through Christ.

I don't believe I have accused you as such.

Michael

 

[RobE]

Reply to Godrulz, Clete, and all open theists

Reply to Godrulz, Clete, and all open theists

Godrulz' individual existence was contingent on the actions of free will agents, thus it is the former; God did not know that Godrulz would exist very long before he actually did exist.

Did Jesus suffer, die, and atone for Godrulz?

rob

 

[RobE]

There is virtually an infinite number of possibilities as to who would mate with whom, what sperm/egg would unite, if mom or baby would live beyond a certain time (could both get killed in an accident), etc. My exact existence was impossible to know as a certainty before creation. Once I was conceived, God would perfectly know the genetic outcome. He would not know every moral and mundane choice that I would make, including whether I would live for Him in the end or not.

Procreation is within our makeup. God is involved at conception giving us life (or it could be inherent in the design of man).

It was possible that a parent could abort a child. This was not foreknown before the parents were conceived themselves. I was once engaged to someone else, as was my wife. If we would have freely continued with our plans with these people, then my kids would not be in existence since I would not have had sex with the one I eventually married. These things are not foreknown from trillions of years ago. Contingencies create an element of uncertainty. There is a difference between God knowing a myriad of possibilities and outcomes and actually knowing these as certainties before they become certain objects of knowledge.

Are we evolving? Are you saying that you came into existence without supernatural intervention? Thinks slow, answer quickly.

Rob

 

[Lighthouse]

Did Jesus suffer, die, and atone for Godrulz?

rob

Yes. Because He died for all people, including those who would exist, without knowing specifically who would exist.

 

[seekinganswers]

Well, the first hint of Christian determinism (which is a specific denial of free will) is Augustine in the 6th century, so this issue goes back much further then the enlightenment.

Augustine was not deterministic. Augustine spoke of the will of men, a volitional aspect of the human nature (i.e. the ability to receive the grace of God, the ablility to make a choice). This is nowhere near the Calvinist perspective (which I might add was not exactly the view that Calvin himself held). Now, Augustine may have had his issues when it came to a very simplistic and crass understanding of sin (i.e. the "original sin" transmitted through the sperm of a man in consception), but Augustine had one thing very right, and that is without the grace of God humanity is in slavery. Augustine's little spat with Pelagius bears through very forcefully to our time. Augustine asked for one very simple ascent from his "dear friend" Pelagius, and that was the admission that unless by grace we are saved, there is no salvation. Augustine was all for the volition of men, but that volition was only possible because of God's freedom (God's grace). Pelagius spoke of the freedom of men, that is the ability of men to change their life, to make right choices and wrong choices, and all of this appart from God.

Humanity never makes a choice outside of the grace of God. God's grace leads to the volition of humanity. For humanity in the garden it is the grace of God that sustains the Creation not through coersion but through humility and love. This means that God does not bring about God's Creation through force; God brings it about by God's very self (from the Father through the Son and the Spirit and back to the Father in praise). From the very beginning the Creation was being established in God, through God and to God. Though humans would go on to reject this, it was not an expression of freedom on their part, but rather their submission to a coersive power (the serpent; a crafty one, who is a reflection of their own craftiness, i.e. a nakedness that must be hidden). They did not exercise freedom in their choice, but rather enslaved themselves to sin (to a life sustained outside of God). They rejected the true Creation of God (which finds its sustanance in God) in order to embrace a creation sustained in itself (a creation which was a parody of the true Creation, for this creation would not thrive but would lead to scarcity and death). Their choice did not change God's plans for the Creation in any way; God would still bring about God's Creation in God, through God, and unto God; humans had simply pulled themselves out of this and into slavery (and with them, as the caretakers of the Creation as a whole, the rest of Creation). But the image of humanity would not be lost, for God would free humans from their slavery (just as he had freed the Creation from slavery to the waters of Chaos in the Creation story of Genesis 1).

In fact, you've already given one example of God asking for a free will decision in "I lay before you life and blessing and death and cursing. Choose life." The ability to choose between the two (even with the emploring of God to choose life) is clearly a free will decision.

Once again, it is not "free-will." First there is grace through God's extending to humanity the choice (a light). Only after there is Grace can there be a response (volition; a contingent choice). As I said before, human choice is always contingent upon the freedom of God. God could have presented himself not as the free God of grace (who does not give to humanity as they deserve). Grace saves humanity from destruction in their sin (for God extends to the humanity in darkness a light, so that those who live in darkness might come into the light and be saved from the darkness). If God does not extend light to humanity, humanity has no choice; humans remain slaves of sin. So our volition (contingent choice) always depends upon the God who is free (the God of Grace). Our action is always grounded in God, for if God had not extended grace to us, in preventing us from destroying ourselves, and in continuing to sustain our life for a time in our rebellion(Wesley's "preventing grace"), we would not be able to act or choose; we would be dead (destroyed; utterly wiped off the face of the earth; and we would have done it to ourselves more likely than not).

Moving into the New Testament, we see in John 6:27-29 that Jesus tells those asking the question that they should believe in the one that the Father sent. Again, they must choose to believe.

But once again the choice is contingent upon the sending of the Father. The Father must first send if we are to believe. If God does not send the Son, we cannot believe. Without the Son (without the light of God) we a blind humans groping in the darkness in the possible hope of stumbling upon something worthwhile. But in my loose extrapolation of Paul's words in Acts 17 to the Athenians who might embrace this blind grope instead of Christ, "it ain't likely you're gonna hit anything."

In John 6:45, we get a clearer picture of what "drawing" is, in that the Father teaches, and we must 'hear and learn'. Those, again, are our free choices, to hear and learn or to not hear and learn.

No, they are not. The first rely on a free God, who by his Grace comes near to us to speak and teach us. If God does not extend the grace, we have no choice. And this is no different for us in the garden. God sustains the Creation by his grace. And our choice to follow God is dependent upon the sustanance of God. If God doesn't sustain us (through grace and love) we have no volition, we have no choice. If God is not free, our life is determined. If God is free, we can be volitional.

You're probably looking for the word rather than the concepts, but these are the concepts of free will in scripture.

You're right. I am looking for the specific term in the Christian scriptures when humans and freedom come together. And I will tell you how it is revealed in the scriptures most often (at least in the New Testament): eleuthepoo - to set free, to free. Humans aren't free, in the scriptures; they are set free (freed). This means that they move from a harsh task-master, a tyrant who controls them, to a Master who is truly masterful, for he is the Lord who is above all of us because he cares for us; he is the King because he has no need of anything from us, and as the one without need to take anything from us, he can freely give of himself. And we, who have nothing to offer our God in return (because we are contingent and our being is held entirely in God) can offer the nothing we have (volition) and God will make it something. This is true worship; not us trying to offer praise to God, but us giving ourselves to God that God might make us into something worthwhile! As Paul puts it in Romans 12, "Therefore, I urge you, brothers, in view of God's mercy, to offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God—this is your spiritual[a] act of worship. Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God's will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will."

I've studied Greek at the master's level. I know what you're taling about.

So you know that my talk about contingency and volition is grounded in the very grammar of the scriptures.

So, you're saying that there are no indicative verbs that describe human actions?

Here's how I will illustrate it to you. Does Christ raise himself from the dead? Or is Christ raised from the dead by the Father? And if Christ's life is only a response to the will of God, how can human action be anything more than this? Christ who could truly claim the freedom that is God's (for he himself is God), this same Christ did not grab hold of his divinity. Instead, he emptied himself, taking on the very morphe of a slave (that is to be made in human likeness). And being found as a man, he humbled himself in obedience, even to the point of death on the cross. Then and only then did God raise him up to the highest place and give him the name that is above all other names, that at the name of Jesus every knee would bow in Heaven and on Earth and under Earth, and every tongue would confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father (a wonderful passage found in Paul's letter to the Philipians).

Peace,
Michael

 

[seekinganswers]

This issue rages on with Molina and Arminius and Calvin, again all pre-Enlightenment.

I would just like to add that all of these men were contemporaries of the foundational philosophers and theologians whose ideas led right into the Enlightenment. They may not have been in the full-blown Enlightenment, but they were at the crux; they were in the birth pangs.

Peace,
Michael

 

[themuzicman]

I would just like to add that all of these men were contemporaries of the foundational philosophers and theologians whose ideas led right into the Enlightenment. They may not have been in the full-blown Enlightenment, but they were at the crux; they were in the birth pangs.

Peace,
Michael

Augustine wasn't.

Muz

 

[themuzicman]

Augustine was not deterministic. Augustine spoke of the will of men, a volitional aspect of the human nature (i.e. the ability to receive the grace of God, the ablility to make a choice). This is nowhere near the Calvinist perspective (which I might add was not exactly the view that Calvin himself held). Now, Augustine may have had his issues when it came to a very simplistic and crass understanding of sin (i.e. the "original sin" transmitted through the sperm of a man in consception), but Augustine had one thing very right, and that is without the grace of God humanity is in slavery. Augustine's little spat with Pelagius bears through very forcefully to our time. Augustine asked for one very simple ascent from his "dear friend" Pelagius, and that was the admission that unless by grace we are saved, there is no salvation. Augustine was all for the volition of men, but that volition was only possible because of God's freedom (God's grace). Pelagius spoke of the freedom of men, that is the ability of men to change their life, to make right choices and wrong choices, and all of this appart from God.

So far, you've failed to say anything that has anything to do with free will. You're stuck on freedom of ABILITY.

Humanity never makes a choice outside of the grace of God. God's grace leads to the volition of humanity. For humanity in the garden it is the grace of God that sustains the Creation not through coersion but through humility and love. This means that God does not bring about God's Creation through force; God brings it about by God's very self (from the Father through the Son and the Spirit and back to the Father in praise). From the very beginning the Creation was being established in God, through God and to God. Though humans would go on to reject this, it was not an expression of freedom on their part, but rather their submission to a coersive power (the serpent; a crafty one, who is a reflection of their own craftiness, i.e. a nakedness that must be hidden). They did not exercise freedom in their choice, but rather enslaved themselves to sin (to a life sustained outside of God). They rejected the true Creation of God (which finds its sustanance in God) in order to embrace a creation sustained in itself (a creation which was a parody of the true Creation, for this creation would not thrive but would lead to scarcity and death). Their choice did not change God's plans for the Creation in any way; God would still bring about God's Creation in God, through God, and unto God; humans had simply pulled themselves out of this and into slavery (and with them, as the caretakers of the Creation as a whole, the rest of Creation). But the image of humanity would not be lost, for God would free humans from their slavery (just as he had freed the Creation from slavery to the waters of Chaos in the Creation story of Genesis 1).

You're still playing with the word "free". Yes, Adam and Eve became slaves to sin in that they condemned all of mankind to God's eternal wrath, but that's referring to the ability of mankind to please God in his own works.

That has nothing to do with free will.

Once again, it is not "free-will." First there is grace through God's extending to humanity the choice (a light). Only after there is Grace can there be a response (volition; a contingent choice). As I said before, human choice is always contingent upon the freedom of God. God could have presented himself not as the free God of grace (who does not give to humanity as they deserve). Grace saves humanity from destruction in their sin (for God extends to the humanity in darkness a light, so that those who live in darkness might come into the light and be saved from the darkness). If God does not extend light to humanity, humanity has no choice; humans remain slaves of sin. So our volition (contingent choice) always depends upon the God who is free (the God of Grace). Our action is always grounded in God, for if God had not extended grace to us, in preventing us from destroying ourselves, and in continuing to sustain our life for a time in our rebellion(Wesley's "preventing grace"), we would not be able to act or choose; we would be dead (destroyed; utterly wiped off the face of the earth; and we would have done it to ourselves more likely than not).

You're like a broken record.

But once again the choice is contingent upon the sending of the Father. The Father must first send if we are to believe. If God does not send the Son, we cannot believe. Without the Son (without the light of God) we a blind humans groping in the darkness in the possible hope of stumbling upon something worthwhile. But in my loose extrapolation of Paul's words in Acts 17 to the Athenians who might embrace this blind grope instead of Christ, "it ain't likely you're gonna hit anything."

Still stuck on freedom of ability.

No, they are not. The first rely on a free God, who by his Grace comes near to us to speak and teach us. If God does not extend the grace, we have no choice. And this is no different for us in the garden. God sustains the Creation by his grace. And our choice to follow God is dependent upon the sustanance of God. If God doesn't sustain us (through grace and love) we have no volition, we have no choice. If God is not free, our life is determined. If God is free, we can be volitional.

More confusion about freedom of ability vs. freedom of will.

You're right. I am looking for the specific term in the Christian scriptures when humans and freedom come together. And I will tell you how it is revealed in the scriptures most often (at least in the New Testament): eleuthepoo - to set free, to free. Humans aren't free, in the scriptures; they are set free (freed). This means that they move from a harsh task-master, a tyrant who controls them, to a Master who is truly masterful, for he is the Lord who is above all of us because he cares for us; he is the King because he has no need of anything from us, and as the one without need to take anything from us, he can freely give of himself. And we, who have nothing to offer our God in return (because we are contingent and our being is held entirely in God) can offer the nothing we have (volition) and God will make it something. This is true worship; not us trying to offer praise to God, but us giving ourselves to God that God might make us into something worthwhile! As Paul puts it in Romans 12, "Therefore, I urge you, brothers, in view of God's mercy, to offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God—this is your spiritual[a] act of worship. Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God's will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will."

And that would be typical of someone using you argument. You want the scriptures to use the words you'd use rather than the ones God actually uses. None are so blind as those who will not see.

So you know that my talk about contingency and volition is grounded in the very grammar of the scriptures.

I think not.

Here's how I will illustrate it to you. Does Christ raise himself from the dead? Or is Christ raised from the dead by the Father? And if Christ's life is only a response to the will of God, how can human action be anything more than this? Christ who could truly claim the freedom that is God's (for he himself is God), this same Christ did not grab hold of his divinity. Instead, he emptied himself, taking on the very morphe of a slave (that is to be made in human likeness). And being found as a man, he humbled himself in obedience, even to the point of death on the cross. Then and only then did God raise him up to the highest place and give him the name that is above all other names, that at the name of Jesus every knee would bow in Heaven and on Earth and under Earth, and every tongue would confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father (a wonderful passage found in Paul's letter to the Philipians).

Until you're ready to deal with freedom of will and not freedom of ability, I'm afraid we have little to talk about, because all you've done is attack straw men to this point.

Michael

 

[godrulz]

In a nutshell, what do you mean by freedom of will vs ability? It sounds to me that they are similar.

 

[themuzicman]

Freedom of ability is the ability to do ANYTHING. Create a universe, flap your arms and fly to the moon, etc. It's unlimited ability. Only God has that.

Freedom of will is ONE ability, which is to choose from the options that a situation presents. I'm standing at McDonalds, and I am able to choose (without pre-determination or external determination) which sandwich I want to order. Just because I am not able to huff and puff and blow the McDonalds down doesn't mean that I can't freely choose to order a BigMac without onions.

Michael

 

[seekinganswers]

Augustine wasn't.

Muz

Augustine wasn't a determinist. Augustine spoke of volition, the ability to choose (where choice is contingent upon the grace of God; it is not to say that God chooses for us, but it is to say that our volition is impossible without God's grace, God's freedom. The Enlightenment forgets God and talks about action entirely centered in the human experience. This is wrong.

Peace,
Michael

 

[seekinganswers]

So far, you've failed to say anything that has anything to do with free will. You're stuck on freedom of ABILITY.

And so far you have all put failed to demonstrate to me how this is biblical language. What I have been speaking to you has come from the scriptures. When humans make a decision in the scriptures it is always contingent upon the grace of God. Whether we are unrighteous or righteous, our very life is grounded in the Father. The Father gives life to both the unrighteous and the righteous, and it is this grace of God which for a time sustains humanity that they might come to repentance. If God does not extend grace, humanity has no choice (because we are dead). The only reason we can take another breath is because the Father sustains us (even as sinners). It is the freedom of God in grace which gives choice to humanity. It is by God's grace that we are volitional. And appart from God we are nothing.

Show me a Greek word applied to humanity that can properly be translated as free? You will not find it. When freedom comes close to humanity it comes in two forms. The first one (which is given to humanity) is a "setting free." Eleutheroo can only be translated as a master coming in to defeat a harsher taskmaster in order to set free the captives. So humans are not free, they are freed. We are not taken out of a context; we always have one master or another. The second is God's, for we humans can receive God's grace, which is the freedom of God to do as God wishes; and we as we receive this grace share in the freedom that is God's; we can rejoice with God in worship and share in God's rest.

I am not stuck on "freedom of ability," as you put it, but I am very much grounded in the language of the scriptures. None of the examples you have given me from the scriptures demonstrate "free-will;" they are all found in the context of grace and are the volitional response of humanity. You will not find a choice of humanity that can be made outside of the context of God's grace, God's freedom. "We live and move and have our being in God" whether we are Christians following in the footsteps of our Lord, or whether we are a bunch of Atheneans who are caught up in darkness. The Father sustains our life for this short time, whether we are righteous or unrighteous. And it is only because of the preventing grace that we have any choice at all.

If you cannot see this, than you have rejected the witness given to us in the scriptures, and it is no wonder that you reject Augustine (and ignorant enough to label him a determinist).

Peace,
Michael

 

[RobE]

Freedom of ability is the ability to do ANYTHING. Create a universe, flap your arms and fly to the moon, etc. It's unlimited ability. Only God has that.

Freedom of will is ONE ability, which is to choose from the options that a situation presents. I'm standing at McDonalds, and I am able to choose (without pre-determination or external determination) which sandwich I want to order. Just because I am not able to huff and puff and blow the McDonalds down doesn't mean that I can't freely choose to order a BigMac without onions.

Michael

Michael,

What's external determination and pre-determination in your opinion. Basically, I'm wondering what you think the cause of your will is exactly.

Rob

 

[themuzicman]

Michael,

What's external determination and pre-determination in your opinion. Basically, I'm wondering what you think the cause of your will is exactly.

Rob

My will causes my choices. My will takes the present situation into consideration and prioritizes what it considers important at the LFW moment, and chooses.

Michael

 

[seekinganswers]

Freedom of ability is the ability to do ANYTHING. Create a universe, flap your arms and fly to the moon, etc. It's unlimited ability. Only God has that.

Freedom of will is ONE ability, which is to choose from the options that a situation presents. I'm standing at McDonalds, and I am able to choose (without pre-determination or external determination) which sandwich I want to order. Just because I am not able to huff and puff and blow the McDonalds down doesn't mean that I can't freely choose to order a BigMac without onions.

Michael

This is just plain wrong, for you have divorced will from action. In the scriptures, a will that has no action, is no will at all. A will that does not have ability is a parody of true will. Only those who have ability have true will. So God's will is true, for God's will is made manifest in the Creation. Humans have will because they are obedient (because they can act in the Creation; they can respond within the context of God and God's grace). "Faith without works is dead." This is like the son who wills to do what the Father has told him to do (what the Father has given him license to do) when the Father calls him to go and work in the field. When it comes to obedience, this son fails and only shows how dead his will is. But when the son who manifests a will not to obey ends up obeying the Father, it is this son who manifests true will, for his obedience shows fourth the freedom the Father has extended to him. He cannot act out disobedience (because he cannot destroy the Father's plans). Someone will work the field, and if the son refuses to do this, it only shows fourth his inability for he has removed himself from the work and from sharing in the joy of the harvest when it is ready. You cannot will nothing, because nothing can't be brought about. To will nothing is oxymoronic, for by definition the will is something. Nothing is chaos (the absense of will and purpose). So those in sin have forfeited the will.

Peace,
Michael

 

[RobE]

Interesting Atonement beliefs

Interesting Atonement beliefs

Yes. Because He died for all people, including those who would exist, without knowing specifically who would exist.

I'm interested in knowing whether Godrulz's sins were nailed to the cross even though Godrulz didn't exist.

Rob

 

[Clete]

I'm interested in knowing whether Godrulz's sins were nailed to the cross even though Godrulz didn't exist.

Rob

Not literally they weren't, no. You answered you own question. They didn't exist yet.
The price that was paid at Calvary was infinitely more than enough to pay for all the sins that had been committed up to the point as well as all the sin the would or even could be committed in the future. That payment, however, is not credited to anyone's account unless they believe as God has stipulated in Romans 10:9-10. And once we believe then our sin deabt is cancelled by virtue of the price paid at Calvary thus it can be accurately said that my sins (since I am a believer) were nailed to that cross upon which my Savior died.


Resting in Him,
Clete

 

[themuzicman]

This is just plain wrong, for you have divorced will from action.

Did you actually read what I wrote, or had you already made up your mind?

In the scriptures, a will that has no action, is no will at all. A will that does not have ability is a parody of true will. Only those who have ability have true will. So God's will is true, for God's will is made manifest in the Creation. Humans have will because they are obedient (because they can act in the Creation; they can respond within the context of God and God's grace). "Faith without works is dead." This is like the son who wills to do what the Father has told him to do (what the Father has given him license to do) when the Father calls him to go and work in the field. When it comes to obedience, this son fails and only shows how dead his will is. But when the son who manifests a will not to obey ends up obeying the Father, it is this son who manifests true will, for his obedience shows fourth the freedom the Father has extended to him. He cannot act out disobedience (because he cannot destroy the Father's plans). Someone will work the field, and if the son refuses to do this, it only shows fourth his inability for he has removed himself from the work and from sharing in the joy of the harvest when it is ready. You cannot will nothing, because nothing can't be brought about. To will nothing is oxymoronic, for by definition the will is something. Nothing is chaos (the absense of will and purpose). So those in sin have forfeited the will.

Peace,
Michael

You like to beat a horse long after it's been dead, don't you...

Michael

 

[RobE]

My will causes my choices. My will takes the present situation into consideration and prioritizes what it considers important at the LFW moment, and chooses.

Michael

And how does your will 'decide' what is important at the LFW moment? Are there influences and outside causes which make your will what it is?

Rob

 

[RobE]

Not literally they weren't, no. You answered you own question. They didn't exist yet.
The price that was paid at Calvary was infinitely more than enough to pay for all the sins that had been committed up to the point as well as all the sin the would or even could be committed in the future. That payment, however, is not credited to anyone's account unless they believe as God has stipulated in Romans 10:9-10. And once we believe then our sin deabt is cancelled by virtue of the price paid at Calvary thus it can be accurately said that my sins (since I am a believer) were nailed to that cross upon which my Savior died.


Resting in Him,
Clete

So God didn't atone specifically for Godrulz. According to Open Theism God atoned 'in general' for every sin that had been committed and every sin that might be committed. In effect, Jesus Christ obliterated sin and destroyed death for everyone for all time.

Romans 10:20And Isaiah boldly says,
"I was found by those who did not seek me;
I revealed myself to those who did not ask for me."

And once we believe then our sin debt is cancelled by virtue of the price paid at Calvary thus it can be accurately said that my sins (since I am a believer) were nailed to that cross upon which my Savior died.

And who made you a believer?

Rob