Nang
TOL Subscriber
Spiritual principle is revealed in parables to those indwelt by the Holy Spirit of Christ, but the gospel is also hid in parables from those who are not privileged by God to believe.
See Isaiah 6:9&10
ARCHIVE: Open Theism part 2
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Spiritual principle is revealed in parables to those indwelt by the Holy Spirit of Christ, but the gospel is also hid in parables from those who are not privileged by God to believe.
See Isaiah 6:9&10
I find these two posts very interesting. I have been having some discussions with some Calvinists on another formerly Christian web site. I find it interesting that on both boards, when a Calvinist tires of dealing with people who do not hold their view, the Calvinist begins to accuse the oter person of not be a Christian. It is subtle comments, and sometimes not so subtle, but I find it an interesting, and saddening, response by Calvinists.
Care to elaborate?
Nang
TOL Subscriber
Upon what do you base that assessment?
Rejecting Calvinism is not tantamount to rejecting Christ. Don't turn Calvinism into a cult. Open Theists do not reciprocate your myopic view. We are all Christian theists, but not necessarily all classical theists as defined by Calvinism. Don't make the mistake of the Catholic Church and make Catholicism, not Christ, a condition of salvation.
Robe, the straw man, naysayer: (some thoughts below inspired by Boyd in 'God and Satan').
God can be certain that He will have a people, despite the Fall. You want a solution to evil that does not include not creating or wiping creation out. God started over with Noah. Group behavior is more predictable than individual behavior. Weather forecasting is based on inanimate objects and laws of cause-effect. Free will moral agents operate on a law of love, freedom, contingent choices, so there is more of an element of uncertainty in our choices. God has set parameters on human freedom. Behavior may be predictable, but all choices are not necessary or knowable as a certainty before they are made. He knows us exhaustively, but that does not mean He sees the potential future as fixed like the past.
Human rebellion was a possibility. I may even be willing to concede that it was inevitable. This possibility was inherent in the gift of self-determination. You want a risk-free model whereas God was willing to have some risk in order to have relationship, not robots.
God knew that He would be able to graciously redeem a people for Himself (Israel/Church). This can be done without determining, and thus foreknowing, which individuals would or would not be part of the people of God.
God knows His own character and abilities. He was willing to do whatever it took and to work for however long it would take to see creation bear the fruit He desired (cf. 2 Peter 3:9...even delaying His plans to allow people to come before He consummates things). God did not desire or intend the Fall. He was grieved to the core when it happened, since there was no good reason for it to happen under perfect conditions. It was the worst-case scenario that God planned for. God then had to use extreme measures as the all-wise/powerful God always finds ways to move towards the goals. He is not taken by surprise or left impotent to act.
In a world of free agents, sometimes the improbable happens. God is able to move forward on His general plans for the corporate good, even when individuals chose to thwart his will for their lives (hell is not God's will for man, but is the consequence of rejecting God and His will for us). Whether person x or y does God's will or not, it does not fluster God or make His plans impossible.
God has complete assurance that His goals will come to pass, even while there is uncertainty as to who will or will not submit to these goals.
"God is determined-he has predestined - that there will be a bride, and He will not give up until this goal is achieved." -Boyd
(whether Hitler or you or me receive or reject our part in the plan...Hitler did not; you and I do...does not change the overall plan that is on track).
God can be certain that He will have a people, despite the Fall. You want a solution to evil that does not include not creating or wiping creation out. God started over with Noah. Group behavior is more predictable than individual behavior. Weather forecasting is based on inanimate objects and laws of cause-effect. Free will moral agents operate on a law of love, freedom, contingent choices, so there is more of an element of uncertainty in our choices. God has set parameters on human freedom. Behavior may be predictable, but all choices are not necessary or knowable as a certainty before they are made. He knows us exhaustively, but that does not mean He sees the potential future as fixed like the past.
Human rebellion was a possibility. I may even be willing to concede that it was inevitable. This possibility was inherent in the gift of self-determination. You want a risk-free model whereas God was willing to have some risk in order to have relationship, not robots.
God knew that He would be able to graciously redeem a people for Himself (Israel/Church). This can be done without determining, and thus foreknowing, which individuals would or would not be part of the people of God.
God knows His own character and abilities. He was willing to do whatever it took and to work for however long it would take to see creation bear the fruit He desired (cf. 2 Peter 3:9...even delaying His plans to allow people to come before He consummates things). God did not desire or intend the Fall. He was grieved to the core when it happened, since there was no good reason for it to happen under perfect conditions. It was the worst-case scenario that God planned for. God then had to use extreme measures as the all-wise/powerful God always finds ways to move towards the goals. He is not taken by surprise or left impotent to act.
In a world of free agents, sometimes the improbable happens. God is able to move forward on His general plans for the corporate good, even when individuals chose to thwart his will for their lives (hell is not God's will for man, but is the consequence of rejecting God and His will for us). Whether person x or y does God's will or not, it does not fluster God or make His plans impossible.
God has complete assurance that His goals will come to pass, even while there is uncertainty as to who will or will not submit to these goals.
"God is determined-he has predestined - that there will be a bride, and He will not give up until this goal is achieved." -Boyd
(whether Hitler or you or me receive or reject our part in the plan...Hitler did not; you and I do...does not change the overall plan that is on track).
themuzicman
Well-known member
That's correct. However, the point is that there is corporate election in Scripture.
I've not confused anything. I was simply pointing out that election to the Old Covenant was corporate by birth, not by individual selection.
Actually, God elects by condition: Faith. Those who believe are the elect of God.
This verse doesn't say what you claim it says.
Muz
Philetus
New member
That's true. The possibility of going to hell is real ... real bad. In Christ it can be avoided.
Not so. Muz has said that God has the ability to know the ultimate outcome will be good.
God has the ability (omnipotence) to ensure the future HE PLANS is GOOD, just as God said that creation was GOOD after creating it. The contingencies of free human beings leaves the future open as to whether they will enjoy/experience the GOOD that God has planed or will experience His wrath.
I think one mistake you (and others) continually make in characterizing Open Theism is in blurring the line between the future as experienced by individuals in this life (and after) and the ultimate future of the kingdom as God has promised and will make happen.
Philetus
Philetus
New member
And it's true.
There were two sons.
17 "When he (the prodigal son) came to his senses,…
28 "The older brother became angry and refused to go in. So his father went out and pleaded with him. 29 But he answered his father, 'Look! All these years I've been slaving for you and never disobeyed your orders. Yet you never gave me even a young goat so I could celebrate with my friends. 30 But when this son of yours who has squandered your property with prostitutes comes home, you kill the fattened calf for him!'
28 "The older brother became angry and refused to go in. So his father went out and pleaded with him. 29 But he answered his father, 'Look! All these years I've been slaving for you and never disobeyed your orders. Yet you never gave me even a young goat so I could celebrate with my friends. 30 But when this son of yours who has squandered your property with prostitutes comes home, you kill the fattened calf for him!'
The attitude of the elder brother sounds like your refusal to acknowledge CabinetMaker's sonship. “This son of yours” … not, my brother.
Careful Nang, you sound like the elder brother, hiding the simple truth from yourself.
RobE
New member
My straw man is a reduction to absurdity based upon the straw man which says "If God knows the future then He is responsible for evil."
Nevertheless, this is the best post I've seen in a while. It reminds me of the teachings of Augustine and some of the other great theologians. Were you aware that Augustine pondered the question of 'what if Judas repented or Paul did not'?
I readily admit that God might not want to foreknow the outcomes, as some have argued here, but rabidly deny that God is incapable of knowing them as 'openess' asserts. Those open theists who argue that God is capable(but unwilling) defeat their own idea of openess, because that which can be known is already determined through some means.
The only part of the argument which I disagree with I put in bold type below. The circumstantial evidence in the Garden lead me to conclude differently than you. God certainly didn't prefer sin, but with the introduction of free will, sin would be inevitable; just as it was in Lucifer's case. Have you ever considered that the angels were tested in the garden right along with mankind? With the tree in the garden, God's lack of intervention as sin was birthed, and God's command not to eat; it appears that God(who had planned a solution through foreknowledge according to your reasoning) probably had a good idea as to the outcomes there.
From my perspective Jesus Christ was the plan making Him the Alpha and Omega of creation. How do you make the 'natural' the 'supernatural'? By what means is this accomplished? The scriptures tell us that the natural must die and be born again into eternity. Paul states that the law brings death to the natural so that we might put on our eternal rainment. That the law which is good, just as God is, increases sin to bring about that death. Would God be evil if He were to facilitate this process through giving Adam the opportunity to fall? If so, then ask yourself what your theology's response to God's actions are? Is there a mature and reasonable response to my straw man?
Muz, who is very knowledgable about scripture, has been forced by this new theology to re-interpret scripture which every serious bible scholar in history has already done -- substantiating Lee's interpretation. I would be interested on your take of the evil which befell Joseph.
"God is determined-he has predestined - that there will be a bride, and He will not give up until this goal is achieved." -Boyd
Give up what? Who is able to withstand God? Are there any real threats to God's kingdom?
RobE
New member
For the record, I was the ghostwriter behind this concise, cogent, profound post. I could not have said it better myself (er, I mean, it is obvious I said it since it is so good).
Robe and others simply fail to understand the Open view well enough to criticize it. They underestimate God's greatness and overemphasize man's ability compared to God's.
themuzicman
Well-known member
RobE said:
There are several steps in between the beginning and the end of that statement. No one asserts this proposal as written. No one. This IS a strawman, and any reduction out of it is a strawman.
And, of course, RobE is unable to get out of his systematic theological mindset to see that there are many, probably an infinite number, of possible courses of the future that end with God accomplishing His purposes. The key, then, is for God to act in such a way that one of those infinite possible courses of the future occur.
And He has done just that.
Thus, God does not know the exact course of the future, and yet DOES know that His purposes will be accomplished, even if He doesn't know the precise path the future will take to get there.
(No, I don't expect RobE to get it.)
Muz
I appreciate your thoughts and interactions. I disagree with the Enyart OT's that say God can chose to not know something He could know. This undermines omniscience, which Open Theism does not.
There are no threats to His kingdom, but there is the possibility that individuals can reject God's purposes for themselves and not be part of the kingdom that God made it possible for them to be part of (Lk. 7:30; Matthew 23:37).
As well, Judas could have repented, and Paul might not have repented. Regardless of what these individuals did or did not do, God would not give up on His plan of redemption and spread of the gospel. Jesus would still have died, but the events leading up to it would be recorded differently (Judas became a betrayer; He was not predestined in eternity to be one). If Paul was not raised up, Peter, John, James and others would have continued the expansion of the gospel. Other great leaders would also have joined them and the Spirit would continue to grow the church and evangelize the world. The Holy Spirit is more effective than mortal Paul. Notice the work still continues to the point of hundreds of millions coming to Christ without Paul being reincarnated.
Are you starting to get it? Meticulous control or foreknowledge adds nothing to the sovereignty of God.
Simple foreknowledge is not helpful at all (I think you are more into this than determinism...determinism makes foreknowledge possible, but at the expense of love and freedom; simple foreknowledge is an assumption, but not coherent). If God foresees that I will marry someone who will cheat on me and influences me to not marry them, then I will be spared hurt. The problem is that God foresees what actually will truthfully happen (supposedly). So His foreknowledge would have actually seen me not marrying the person. This makes no sense and shows that simple foreknowledge is not helpful to providence and is illogical. The reality is that it may be wise and reasonable to marry someone knowing the possibility but not the uncertainty of adultery. Based on the person's character and history at the time, God and myself would not have a reason not to marry the believer. If unfaithfulness happens later, God and myself would respond to mitigage the situation. Foreknowledge is of no benefit and impossible in light of God's wisdom and ability that does not need a crystal ball in order to act in history.
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Nang
TOL Subscriber
Where?
You cannot use the nation of Israel as an example of being corporately "elect." "Delivered," yes. "Baptized," yes. "Sanctified," yes. "Elect," no.
There is no such teaching in the bible about an "election to the Old Covenant." The Old Covenant was the Law, and all mankind is born under that covenent.
Election has to do with grace, found in the Savior, who successfully kept the old covenant through obedience to the law.
Can you cite Scripture that says this? I read Scripture that says God chooses individuals to love, according to election, before the individuals are born to do good or evil:
"For the children being not yet born, neither having done any good or evil, that the purpose of God according to election might stand, not of works, but of him that calleth." Romans 9:11
This is a totally unconditional statement, inspired by God. Who are you to teach differently?
Agreed.
They believe because they are elect. They are not elect because they believe.
Godly election is the first, unconditional cause of grace and faith; belief is the effect. Not vice versa.
Nang
Nang
TOL Subscriber
What an outstanding post! Two in a row even! The one before this was just as brilliant.And it's true.
There were two sons.
17 "When he (the prodigal son) came to his senses,…
28 "The older brother became angry and refused to go in. So his father went out and pleaded with him. 29 But he answered his father, 'Look! All these years I've been slaving for you and never disobeyed your orders. Yet you never gave me even a young goat so I could celebrate with my friends. 30 But when this son of yours who has squandered your property with prostitutes comes home, you kill the fattened calf for him!'
The attitude of the elder brother sounds like your refusal to acknowledge CabinetMaker's sonship. “This son of yours” … not, my brother.
Careful Nang, you sound like the elder brother, hiding the simple truth from yourself.
Great work Philetus! Truthsmacking at its finest! :BRAVO:
Nang
TOL Subscriber
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Careful Nang, you sound like the elder brother, hiding the simple truth from yourself.
You are right . . . I have picked up a judgmental fault from reading "Clete" posts . . .shame on me!
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