patman
Active member
You don't mean that, Lee...
God became a man named Jesus, so now you are saying he isn't God?
ARCHIVE: Open Theism part 2
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You don't mean that, Lee...
God became a man named Jesus, so now you are saying he isn't God?
Philetus
New member
Good line!
:chuckle:
It doesn't????????
I thought that was a documentary.
I mean, if Lee can imagine it then surely God can and if He can must do it.
P
patman
Active member
You used the word "might" above. By using the word "might," you imply that God COULD still be able to accomplish his will (even in spite of those conditions), you just don't think it is likely.
If it is true that there is a small chance that God could accomplish his will of future events, what about God do you see as lacking that you doubt he can do so?
In other words....
What weakness do you see in God that causes him to be crippled if he is without absolute future knowledge?
lee_merrill
New member
It's very simple, if you think most of the people on your party list will come to your birthday party, and they can (without sin) decide not to, you may be disappointed.
And let's say God makes a Burley and and Blogit creature on some far distant planet, and they decide to rebel, and there is such a flood of wickedness that a flood (just speaking hypothetically) is necessary, and we all regret that Burleys and Blogits were made on Aldeberan. Impossible?
Philetus said:
Because if there is a possibility of disappointment, then you cannot say it is impossible we would be disappointed in heaven.
Yes I do, based on God making sure predictions of future free choices--how could God know that Peter would remain faithful many years into the future?Philetus said:
I agree! The Open View does not agree, for how is it that OVT says God regretted making Saul king? That sounds like a different choice would have been better.
A being, to be omnipotent, does not have to actually do every possible deed.
God the Son became man, and yes, Jesus is God, that does not mean that God is Jesus.Patman said:
Blessings,
Lee
God has preserved His word, as I have specifically explained to you already. Don't be an obtuse dork. Simply repeating your position like some stupid parrot doesn't refute the arguments I've made.
The idea that the King Jams Version, or any other version of the Bible is a flawless translation is, frankly, idiotic. KJVO ding-bats can't even agree amongst themselves as to which of the various editions of the King James Version is the inspired translation. Such mindless positions only serve to undermine the message of the Bible and further marginalize Christianity in our society.
I'm extremely disappointed in you STP. Don't proceed to blow your entire reputation to smithereens by continuing this intentional intellectual blindness. You've been tricked STP! Believe me, I know! I've attended churches that teach this nonsense and I've heard every clichéd argument, like the completely irrational one you just mindlessly posted here, in existence and none of them hold water. They amount to a lie. You've been lied too STP! Open your eyes and don't fall for it any longer! The position is not necessary, it is not Biblical, it is not rational, it is not true! Your understanding of what God's word is is faulty, your understanding of what it means to preserve it is faulty, your understanding of perfection is faulty and your conclusions that are based on these faulty premises wouldn't follow even if they weren't faulty premises! The entire position couldn't be more completely baseless!
You say that if the KJV (or whatever version you think is perfect) isn't perfect and since we don't have the originals that Jesus must have lied! That's stupid STP! Jesus didn't lie! Jesus can't lie! He's God, for crying out loud! Hasn't it ever occurred to you that rather than mindlessly concluding that the KJV must be a perfect translation that perhaps you need a different understanding of what it means to preserve God's word? Wouldn't that make a lot more sense than just arbitrarily choosing the KJV as the perfect word of God? How would you know that its the KJV anyway? How do you know that God didn't preserve His word in German or Latin, or for that matter, how do you know that the various manuscripts don't contain the "perfectly preserved" word of God? How do you know that the "perfectly preserved" word of God isn't in a vault somewhere in the south of France? By your understanding of what the preservation of God's word must mean, you couldn't prove otherwise! For all you know Bill Gates has the only extant copy of the "perfectly preserved" word of God in his sock drawer! The point here being that some version of the Bible isn't perfect just because we declare it to be and if someone claims that a particular version is perfect then its up to them to prove it, and guess what STP? You cannot prove the KJV or any other version of the Bible is a perfect translation! On the contrary! You can know for an absolute fact that it is not a perfect translation because there is no such thing as a perfect translation! If fact, the only way you can get around the errors is to declare the errors themselves to be inspired! If that isn't irrational, unfalsifiable nonsense then nothing ever has been!
Alright! That's enough of that! I'm done discussing this. I most certainly do not wish to make an enemy of you over this and so if you want to discuss Open Theism then I'm happy to do that and we can use whatever version of the Bible you want, but I'm not going to entertain this flawless translation issue any longer. There are other threads dedicated to that topic where the discussion can be, and has been, fleshed out in more detail if you're interested.
Resting in Him,
Clete
I had a response to this typed but then a read a later post that made me delete it. I refuse to discuss Open Theism (in this context) with people who may or may not be actual Christians.
God is Jesus! If A=B, B=A. If Jesus is God, then God is Jesus. There is not more than one God, Lee. God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit are ONE God (Deuteronomy 6:4, John 10:30).Lee said:
Care to explain yourself or shall I give you the benefit of the doubt and assume that you not saved and remain in your sins?
Resting in Him,
Clete
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patman
Active member
SaulToPaul 2
Well-known member
Clete,
I'm very disappointed at how quickly you'll blow a fuse at a brother who
simply believes he has the word of God in his hands, and is willing to rely on it
as such.
Now, carry on with Open Theism...
I'm very disappointed at how quickly you'll blow a fuse at a brother who
simply believes he has the word of God in his hands, and is willing to rely on it
as such.
Now, carry on with Open Theism...
I blew a fuse, as you put it, because you completely ignored perfectly valid arguments and simply repeated your position as though doing so made those arguments disappear or something. In short, I "blew a fuse" because you pulled a RobE/AMR type maneuver and that is both insulting to me and denigrating to you! And while I definitely think you're one of the good guys here and consider you to be an ally on most issues, I don't play favorites with the truth. I can't very well give RobE a hard time about his intellectual dishonesty while turning a blind eye to yours or anyone else's. If the sort of argumentation you employed were valid then everything any of us believe would all be true and we would all be wasting our time here. My response may have disappointed you, but you have to understand that it was intentionally offensive, as was entirely appropriate, and I will allow the offense of it to work its ministry.
Now, as you say, let's carry on with Open Theism, shall we?
If you tell me what, in your mind, is the most pressing question/objection that Open Theism needs to answer, I'll do my best to answer it for you.
Resting in Him,
Clete
lee_merrill
New member
Yes, yet Jesus is not the entirety of God, is the point here. Though God's fullness dwells in him--these are matters of some concern for theology, which I recommend you and others to read before repeating various questions--this decision as to the overall nature of God and Christ I believe is writ large in various creeds.
Blessings,
Lee
Philetus
New member
I didn't say that!
I do say if God doesn't know all future free-will choices, he might be mistaken about the best course from time to time, even in a sinless world.
Blessings,
Lee
How so? How can God be mistaken about the best choice somebody might make? The implication doesn't make any sense, and you probably mean something other than what you wrote.
Right and wrong is not a point of view. And he only takes one way, the right way. If we choose the wrong way, it is on us.
The Bible says more than once he knows us in the womb. He knew us when we were formed up. The mixing of genes, placing in order, or whatever. Just the same as an engineer knows and can predict the behavior of his machine. The main difference is that we are living, and we choose to sin against God.
ApologeticJedi
New member
Luckily Micheal Jordan knew the future -- else he might not be able to win a one-on-one matchup against his eight year old. :think:
Apparently the typical view of God's power isn't that great, that people think God could lose if He shouldn't have future knowledge. Reactionary statements against Open Theism promote this lack of faith in God.
"I'll only have faith in God if .... " say too many Calvinists.
Apparently the typical view of God's power isn't that great, that people think God could lose if He shouldn't have future knowledge. Reactionary statements against Open Theism promote this lack of faith in God.
"I'll only have faith in God if .... " say too many Calvinists.
Philetus
New member
I didn’t say ‘impossible’ I said I’d get over it IF. The point is you are trying to build your view of reality on speculation … something not even God does. (I can't wait to see how you twist that one.)
Read my sentence again … or for the first time … whichever. Was it prediction or encouragement?
You might agree but your reason for doing so stinks and betrays your lack of understand the Open View ..... again ... and again ... and again.
You assume God made Saul king because God knew Saul would/wouldn’t disappoint the people or God. Maybe Saul was just the best choice available. He was tall. But, the very act of demanding a king disappointed God. Samuel told them it wouldn’t work out the way they imagined but they persisted. They wanted to be ‘like other nations.’ Not God’s idea but one He could work through. That set up an entire set of circumstances and contingencies that God had to work through to continue with His overall intentions.
Ask your self this one ... Its a tuffy for all of us: Who's Idea was it to build the Temple? God's or David's. Just an attempt to get off your preoccupation with prediction and center the debate on relationship/interaction between God and humanity where it should be if we are going to focus on Open Theism.
Neither does He have to be in meticulous control of every deed done by others.
Bless you, too.
Philetus
lee_merrill
New member
He can, if the best choice is not the only choice, or if there are several equally good choices--there must be several non-sinful alternatives, correct, if there are free choices in heaven?
The problem is that God knew before Jeremiah was born. The engineer's prediction can be basically certain because he is making a machine, yet people are not machines, so how could it be known that a man named Cyrus would decree that Jerusalem be rebuilt? or Jeremiah would really be a prophet?
Blessings,
Lee
Philetus
New member
Philetus
New member
Oh, Lee. Oh, Lee. Oh, Lee! Lord God, Almighty!
To my Open Theist Brothers,
Want a great source that deals with the whole debate over “Who Jesus Is” and how Dualism keeps creeping back into the Theology of the West, get your hands on the works of Thomas F. Torrance. (That isn’t his only subject but Incarnation and Christology seem to be a primary theme in his writting. I first encountered him in “Theological Foundations for Ministry” edited by Ray S. Anderson, T&T Clark, Edinburg, 1979/2000. (Anderson’s a good read in itself). There are several exerts of TFT in the book. Here are two pages of Torrance found there:
I'll bet only GR and maybe Clete read that. Oh, and my buddy Patman who has made some great points.
If anyone can get there hands on Torrance's Time Space and the Incarnation (I think is the title) I would love to know what you think.
P
No. You are still proceeding from a false assumption. You claim God laid everything out based on knowing the future, and if he doesn't know the entire future, he won't know the best choice. Wrong. He only chooses right from wrong, not what type of ham to eat for dinner.
That is my point. We can think, a machine can not. God knows us better than we know ourselves. It isn't that he already saw it happen. He knows how we should react to certain input, and to great degree of accuracy, how we will. But people have still stumped him. Genesis 6!
God will relent of the destruction if the people change their way, and he will withold the blessing if they do evil. It is contingent on that nations actions. That means he is not the puppet master.
ApologeticJedi
New member
What was your point in this Lee? That God could pick a good choice that turned out later to be sinful? I'm not sure that can happen.
If you mean that God could come to regret His good choices -- then certainly Saul would be a good example of that. But to argue that God is unable to overcome these setbacks would be foolish.
Ask a 8 month pregnant mother if babies in the womb have personalities. My wife would say they do. These days they encourage you to talk to your child and that almost always they will respond to the parent's voice.
Cyrus (Kurash) was a common name for the kings of Persia. In Cyrus the Great's Prism , he mentioned that His grandfather's name was also Cyrus. So it seems to be a common royal name.
So how hard was it for God to convince one of the men with a common royal name to start the rebuilding effort? --- Well it would be hard for you or I, but not outside what God could do.
You act like God has no ability whatsoever. Do you really think this is something God is too impotent to overcome if He can't use some future gazing ability?
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