ARCHIVE: Open Theism part 2

[Lon]

God, in His sovereignty, actualized a creation that involved love, relationship, freedom, and risk. A risk-free model is determinism, not relational.

I would avoid win vs lose terminology except with Satan losing to God, the Victor. The loss is for the creature who rejects God. God is hurt and grieved, but He does not lose His status.

God can do anything logically possible. In wisdom and love, He chose a non-deterministic universe. This has implications for outcomes. Things are not the way God desired or intended. God paid a great price to redeem man, but it is our fault that it was necessary.

You wrongly assume that one has to be omnicausal to be omnicompetent. It actually takes more ability to rule free moral agents and yet bring one's purposes to pass than using a meticulous control model.

The best chess players or doctors respond to contingencies with their superior ability. They do not depend on controlling or knowing everything in advance. There is nothing praiseworthy about a Dictator.

It wasn't a trap, but for one not 'game' for 'winning' and 'losing' analogy, you sure play with the idea. This was the point of my win scenario. In football, the best coach usually wins. If you want to win a superbowl bet (hypothetically of course) on the best coach. God wins, and my point is that He is more than just capable, He must win. There is no room for error with God. In your chess game, God always wins. His Son will return. All wrongs will be made right. The only reason God could lose is if He chooses to, otherwise we have a Christian message closer to Yin/Yang. Because God's knowledge could not have Him losing, you must concede He never makes mistakes (and Sanders was absolutely wrong). Again, this means God is much closer to a virtual EDF than OV would admit. There is nothing that would be a 'new' move if God knows all there is to know past and present. I'm arguing for a better OV position here.
Leaving the game analogies behind, The 'very smart' isn't good enough. He has to be able to bring about His intention (win). God cannot fail, both because of who He is and what He has determined. There is no greater strength that can defeat God. There is no smarter being that can outsmart Him at His own creation.

"Very Smart." How smart? If God never loses, He knows future intentions and actions of men as old hat. There is no move man can make that He isn't prepared for. There is nothing man can do to thwart His intentions. If you begin to follow this line of logic to its conclusion, you'll be very close to EDF logically.

I believe this is the argument Rob has been trying to make for several days now.

 

[godrulz]

God will fulfill His project for man no matter how long it takes. He cannot be overthrown and lose since He can pull the plug whenever He wants. He is omnipotent. Relationships are not based on brute force. Love implies the equal possibility of obedience or disobedience. Millions will perish in hell though it was intended for Satan/demons, not man. This is a loss of the battle for the individual heart, but not a loss of the war (Satan is defeated and ends up there too).

God does not always get His way in individual lives due to love being a higher value than brute force. God is grieved and never intended individuals to perish. He could not create or make us robots (to ensure your 'perfect' outcome), but He did not chose those realities.

In both our views, many perish. My view makes Satan and man culpable (warfare model). Your view wrongly impugns the character of God and His ways (blueprint model).

 

[RobE]

God, in His sovereignty, actualized a creation that involved love, relationship, freedom, and risk. A risk-free model is determinism, not relational.

This begs the question: How did God know love through relationship would result from His acts? I don't think God had a risk-free model(as you mean) for each component of creation, but God has a risk-free model for all of creation. Two motifs. The risk was God ordaining that mankind would be allowed to make free decisions. It was still necessary that God know what those agents would do to eliminate the risk for all of creation. The two motifs can't contradict or eliminate each other.

Things are not the way God desired or intended.

Then why do these things exist? I would conclude that God has a greater desire in mind(than the sin and evil that men commit and suffer). This desire overrides His desire for ALL to be saved, His compassion for those who suffer, and even the love of His own life. If God wouldn't spare suffering for Himself, then why would you conclude He would spare your suffering to achieve His Glorious Purpose for creation?

Rob
p.s. Notice I said nothing of foreknowledge in my comments.

 

[RobE]

God will fulfill His project for man no matter how long it takes. He cannot be overthrown and lose since He can pull the plug whenever He wants. He is omnipotent.

You agree then that God wants things as they currently are. Otherwise, He would 'pull the plug'.

God does not always get His way in individual lives due to love being a higher value than brute force.

How are you able to deny that God isn't 'getting' His way, when you've already agreed that God is able to 'pull the plug' on any situation which He doesn't desire.

God is grieved and never intended individuals to perish.

Then why doesn't He 'pull the plug' if things aren't going as intended?

He could not create or make us robots (to ensure your 'perfect' outcome), but He did not chose those realities.

It was His desire to do otherwise. That's why He decreed it to be.

In both our views, many perish. My view makes Satan and man culpable (warfare model).

So God stands by watching evil acts without 'pulling the plug' for no reason whatsoever(other than hope)?

When......

Your view wrongly impugns the character of God and His ways (blueprint model).

All we're saying is that God foresaw evil acts and refused to 'pull the plug' on creation before its birth(for the reason of saving His sons and daughters which He foreknew).

At least my idea gives God a valid reason for not 'pulling the plug'.

 

[RobE]

Lee, Lon, Godrulz;

I started a thread about God ordaining. It would seem to address similar issues to the ones we are discussing here and on the 'open and closed' thread.

I would welcome your views since I think the o.v. has given up on answering their dilemna about God foreknowing free acts. They don't want either solution which we provided. God coercing or God foreknowing is unacceptable to them, apparently. They have failed to provide an alternative. Muz tried to but ended up affirming God coerced.

Click here for the thread.

 

[godrulz]

This begs the question: How did God know love through relationship would result from His acts? I don't think God had a risk-free model(as you mean) for each component of creation, but God has a risk-free model for all of creation. Two motifs. The risk was God ordaining that mankind would be allowed to make free decisions. It was still necessary that God know what those agents would do to eliminate the risk for all of creation. The two motifs can't contradict or eliminate each other.



Then why do these things exist? I would conclude that God has a greater desire in mind(than the sin and evil that men commit and suffer). This desire overrides His desire for ALL to be saved, His compassion for those who suffer, and even the love of His own life. If God wouldn't spare suffering for Himself, then why would you conclude He would spare your suffering to achieve His Glorious Purpose for creation?

Rob
p.s. Notice I said nothing of foreknowledge in my comments.

These things exist as a consequence of issues relating to freedom, not because they are desired or intended. IF they were for a higher good or God's will, they would not be harshly condemned and judged (which they are).

He does desire all to be saved, but salvation cannot be caused or coerced if it is based on love and holiness. There are issues relating to His moral government of the universe.

I do not desire or intend my kids to do certain things (some parents even lose kids to drugs and suicide), yet they do without my constant manipulation and micromanagement. I do not cop out with a blueprint model to justify the indefensible. There is a better explanation for these issues than you are proposing/contemplating.

There are issues relating to justice and irrevocability of freedom as to why God does not pull the plug. If He did, He would have to wipe us all out now and everytime something evil happens. Justice delayed is not justice denied. The Psalmist asked these questions. We can trust God's character and assume the complexity of the issue is reason why God wisely does not intervene all the time or eliminate all suffering. Jesus is the model for God's stance relating to sin, sickness, suffering, evil. He opposes it and mitigates it; He does not affirm it as God's perfect will (your wrong assumption). Sanders and Boyd deal with your problem, so read them an length. My posts are not detailed enough for you, I guess.

 

[Philetus]

God would only need to hope if He were unable to do anything about the situation, Philetus.

Who ever said God is unable to do anything about ‘the situation’? Not me.

There are things God is unwilling to do about ‘the situation’.

Coerce is one. Love precludes it. There are some situations in which God can only make His love known and then patiently wait.

This begs the question: How did God know love through relationship would result from His acts?

Who said God knew the future? :doh: What any dim-wit knows is that love is the foundation of any real relationship. There are no guarantees. Its called risk. Love hurts. The cross proves it so.

God is long-suffering, but God won't wait forever.
Have a happy future,
Philetus

 

[Philetus]

He does desire all to be saved, but salvation cannot be caused or coerced if it is based on love and holiness. There are issues relating to His moral government of the universe.

:first:
:second:
:third:

Post of the moment!

 

[lee_merrill]

He does desire all to be saved, but salvation cannot be caused or coerced if it is based on love and holiness. There are issues relating to His moral government of the universe.

I note this is not a verse, but this is:

1 Corinthians 1:20 Where is the wise man? Where is the scholar? Where is the philosopher of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world?

I do not cop out with a blueprint model ...

1 Corinthians 1:24 ... but to those whom God has called [note God's plan, his blueprint], both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God.

Jesus is the model for God's stance relating to sin, sickness, suffering, evil. He opposes it and mitigates it; He does not affirm it as God's perfect will ...

He therefore opposed and mitigated the cross? And would also still oppose such?

Galatians 6:14 May I never boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, through which the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world.

 

[godrulz]

I note this is not a verse, but this is:

1 Corinthians 1:20 Where is the wise man? Where is the scholar? Where is the philosopher of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world?


1 Corinthians 1:24 ... but to those whom God has called [note God's plan, his blueprint], both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God.


He therefore opposed and mitigated the cross? And would also still oppose such?

Galatians 6:14 May I never boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, through which the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world.

Huh? Quoting a verse about vain Greek philosophies does not disprove biblical principles.

God has a blueprint for salvation: Jesus died; eternal life is through faith in Him, etc. This cannot be extrapolated to a meticulous, exhaustive blueprint of every moral and mundane choice in the universe. It is not His will that millions perish. This is a deviation from His blueprint, possible due to the nature of freedom He gives us.

Boyd (God and Satan): "In contrast to all blueprint theodicies, within the trinitarian warfare theodicy (love entails freedom; freedom entails risk; risk entails moral responsibility; moral resp. is proportionate to the power to influence; power to influence is irrevocable; power to influence is finite) we need not assume that there is a specific, good divine reason why God ordains or allows each specific evil event to take place. The only reason God allows free agents to engage in evil deeds is that this possibility is what it means to create agents free. The specific reasons why these agents actualize this possibility in particular ways is found in them, not God. If God is justified in risking freedom in general, we need not ask why God allowed any particular event. To be sure, God can use evil agents to fulfill His purposes, and He always works to bring good out of evil. But God's specific way of responding to a particular evil must not be confused with God specifically ordaining or allowing a particular evil.

God seems arbitrary, not because He is arbitrary, but because the world he interacts with is unfathomably complex....If we saw what God sees, we would understand why God did what He did and we would see that He is always concerned with maximizing goodness and minimizing evil."

In a blueprint model, God is responsible for heinous evil and more evil is potentially better?!


The cross is a plan of redemption based on love and holiness. It is provision, an antidote for evil. It should not be confused with heinous evil, a rookie Calvinistic mistake. If God sent Jesus to live, not die, and man snuffed Him contrary to God's will, then you have a point. That view is closer to Moonies or Islam, not Christianity.

Your proof texts are misapplied in principle.:down:

 

[Philetus]

Quote godrulz:
Jesus is the model for God's stance relating to sin, sickness, suffering, evil. He opposes it and mitigates it; He does not affirm it as God's perfect will ...

Quote Lee:
He therefore opposed and mitigated the cross? And would also still oppose such?

Lee, you just equated the cross with evil. Please don’t miss the simple statement that GR just made.

Quote godrulz: The cross is a plan of redemption based on love and holiness. It is provision, an antidote for evil. It should not be confused with heinous evil ...

 

[godrulz]

Why do some people 'get it' and others do not? The cross is not in the same category as Hitler killing Jews!

 

[Nick M]

Why do some people 'get it' and others do not? The cross is not in the same category as Hitler killing Jews!

Different brain function :idunno: ?:Commie:

 

[Philetus]

Different brain function :idunno: ?:Commie:

... or malfunction ...
:banana: :devil: :bannana:

 

[lee_merrill]

Huh? Quoting a verse about vain Greek philosophies does not disprove biblical principles.

However, "... salvation cannot be caused or coerced if it is based on love and holiness" has no verse that exemplifies it, note that all the analogies of salvation are passive, the Biblical principle is that salvation is birth, and resurrection, we are passive.

In a blueprint model, God is responsible for heinous evil and more evil is potentially better?!

No, God is in control, so what happens is what he sees is best. More pleasant circumstances may not be best, either. And if God is just "minimizing evil," how can all work together for good for those who love God? "I will not be afraid, what can man do to me?" then has an answer. Man can indeed inflict real harm, is what he can do. I therefore need to some degree, to fear what man can do. But we read:

Proverbs 12:21 No harm befalls the righteous, but the wicked have their fill of trouble.

The cross is not in the same category as Hitler killing Jews!

Killing the Son of God was not more of an evil? It was not the worst sin?

Yet he walked the way of the cross, for our redemption.

Blessings,
Lee

 

[godrulz]

 

[Philetus]

Killing the Son of God was not more evil? It was not the worst sin?

Yet he walked the way of the cross, for our redemption.

Blessings,
Lee

If 'walking the way of the cross' is evil intended for a greater good, then Jesus calls us all to a discipleship that is evil.

Lee, its the Christmas season; try really hard not thinking about pink elephants for a few days.

Philetus

 

[lee_merrill]

If 'walking the way of the cross' is evil intended for a greater good, then Jesus calls us all to a discipleship that is evil.

No, crucifixion is evil, yet walking in the way of the cross results in good.


Matthew 16:23-24 "... you do not have in mind the things of God, but the things of men." Then Jesus said to his disciples, "If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross and follow me."

"Our old self is crucified: Is put to death, as if on a cross. In this expression there is a personification of the corrupt propensities of our nature represented as 'our old self,' our native disposition, etc. The picture is here carried out; and this old self, this corrupt nature, is represented as having been put to death in an agonizing and torturing manner. The pains of crucifixion were perhaps the most torturing of any that the human frame could bear. Death in this manner was most lingering and distressing. And the apostle here, by the expression 'is crucified,' doubtless refers to the painful and protracted struggle which everyone goes through when his evil propensities are subdued; when his corrupt nature is slain; and when, a converted sinner, he gives himself up to God. Sin dies within him, and he becomes dead to the world, and to sin; 'for as by the cross, death is most lingering and severe, so that corrupt nature is not subdued but by anguish' (Grotius). All who have been born again can enter into this description. They remember 'the wormwood and the gall.' They remember the anguish of conviction; the struggle of corrupt passion for ascendancy; the dying convulsions of sin in the heart; the long and lingering conflict before it was subdued, and the soul became submissive to God. Nothing will better express this than the lingering agony of crucifixion; and the argument of the apostle is, that as sin has produced such an effect, and as the Christian is now free from its embrace and its power, he will live to God." (Barnes)

And this application of the cross is often through events which are sinful, in and of themselves, or the results of sin.

"Every trouble is an opportunity to win the grace of strength. Whatever else trouble is in the world for, it is here for this good purpose: to develop strength. For a trouble is a moral and spiritual task. It is something which is hard to do. And it is in the spiritual world as in the physical, strength is increased by encounter with the difficult. A world without any trouble in it would be, to people of our kind, a place of spiritual enervation and moral laziness. [So] every day is crowded with care. Every day to every one of us brings its questions, its worries, and its tasks, brings its sufficiency of trouble. Thus we get our daily spiritual exercise. Every day we are blessed with new opportunities for the development of strength of soul." (George Hodges)

 

[Philetus]

No, crucifixion is evil, yet walking in the way of the cross results in good.


Matthew 16:23-24 "... you do not have in mind the things of God, but the things of men." Then Jesus said to his disciples, "If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross and follow me."

"Our old self is crucified: Is put to death, as if on a cross. In this expression there is a personification of the corrupt propensities of our nature represented as 'our old self,' our native disposition, etc. The picture is here carried out; and this old self, this corrupt nature, is represented as having been put to death in an agonizing and torturing manner. The pains of crucifixion were perhaps the most torturing of any that the human frame could bear. Death in this manner was most lingering and distressing. And the apostle here, by the expression 'is crucified,' doubtless refers to the painful and protracted struggle which everyone goes through when his evil propensities are subdued; when his corrupt nature is slain; and when, a converted sinner, he gives himself up to God. Sin dies within him, and he becomes dead to the world, and to sin; 'for as by the cross, death is most lingering and severe, so that corrupt nature is not subdued but by anguish' (Grotius). All who have been born again can enter into this description. They remember 'the wormwood and the gall.' They remember the anguish of conviction; the struggle of corrupt passion for ascendancy; the dying convulsions of sin in the heart; the long and lingering conflict before it was subdued, and the soul became submissive to God. Nothing will better express this than the lingering agony of crucifixion; and the argument of the apostle is, that as sin has produced such an effect, and as the Christian is now free from its embrace and its power, he will live to God." (Barnes)

And this application of the cross is often through events which are sinful, in and of themselves, or the results of sin.

"Every trouble is an opportunity to win the grace of strength. Whatever else trouble is in the world for, it is here for this good purpose: to develop strength. For a trouble is a moral and spiritual task. It is something which is hard to do. And it is in the spiritual world as in the physical, strength is increased by encounter with the difficult. A world without any trouble in it would be, to people of our kind, a place of spiritual enervation and moral laziness. [So] every day is crowded with care. Every day to every one of us brings its questions, its worries, and its tasks, brings its sufficiency of trouble. Thus we get our daily spiritual exercise. Every day we are blessed with new opportunities for the development of strength of soul." (George Hodges)

Certainly worthy of contemplation after your previous post that we are but passive spectators in a universe that is meticulously controlled by a sovereign who commits/sanctions evil acts. Try to get your mind around the whole elephant, Lee. Killing Jesus was an evil act ... laying down one's life for others isn't.

Have a merry Christmas,
Philetus

 

[Yorzhik]

It did, though, Nineveh was overthrown, but by repentance, instead of by destruction--the same word (overthrown) is used elsewhere of a change of heart.


Well, either God knows only a remnant will be saved, or he doesn't. This is his sentence, so we can't be saying it's an estimate, or that he is "Knowing some proximal things as a high probability in advance" (Godrulz). So if God is not pretending he knows, why then, he knows only a remnant will be saved, and then all Israel, and these involve free decisions, according to the Open View.

I'm not sure how this applies to God knowing all Israel will be saved, though, could you expand on this?

Blessings,
Lee

Sure. God is sitting across from you at the kitchen table. He uses His knowledge of His decreetive will and tells you if you will have your palms up or down in 10 seconds. Will you have your palms the way God says? Could you put your palms the other way if you so chose?

This is a test to see if will exists or not. If it does exist, then the will of the Israelites as individuals could lead to God's prophecy not coming to pass.