ARCHIVE: Open Theism part 3

[rehcjam]

How can God exist eternally in the past if he is in time? How would He have ever arrived at this point?

 

[eveningsky339]

Because love would not be possible if He prevented it.

Resting in Him,
Clete

Ah, so there will be evil in the New Jerusalem.

 

[eveningsky339]

How can God exist eternally in the past if he is in time? How would He have ever arrived at this point?

It's one of several mathematical impossibilities that must be accepted by OVer's in order to support their views.

It is impossible to have an infinite number of historical events within a single time line. Consider this line from the Kalam Argument:

1. The series of events in time is a collection formed by adding one member after another.
2. A collection formed by adding one member after another cannot be actually infinite.
3. Therefore, the series of events in time cannot be actually infinite.

 

[SaulToPaul 2]

Ah, so there will be evil in the New Jerusalem.

I think this is a good point. There will come a time when death and hell are destroyed, it will be "impossible" for anyone from that point on to sin...to not love God.

 

[Lighthouse]

You all seem to have your own choices for compelling verses (just an observation I can't figure).

This one in particular is a problem with understanding omnipresence. If God has to literally 'go down' then He couldn't hear your prayers over there without leaving me from over hear when I am also praying. God conveys thoughts in what people can understand. They really are the 'children' of Israel when this is written. Perhaps this is why God loves them so much. He took a humble slave nation and raised them up intellectually as well as spiritually but Moses, in conveying truths to these uneducated slaves, must express God's view in very basic terms which include anthropomorphic understandings, especially in the Pentateuch (the beginning books).

You are so completely stupid.

Prayer finds its way to God.:dunce::duh:

 

[assuranceagent]

You are so completely stupid.

Prayer finds its way to God.:dunce::duh:

Well, can't argue with that :chuckle:

 

[godrulz]

How can God exist eternally in the past if he is in time? How would He have ever arrived at this point?

<-----------creation-------First Coming------5th century-----2008----2011---------->

I do not see your problem...don't confuse instants and intervals....endless time does not preclude things from happening in sequence. I asked a mathematician about infinity/eternity and she agreed that an eternal being can exist in an endless duration of past time without beginning and still arrive at a point in the future....in your view, creation becomes co-eternal with God.

 

[godrulz]

It's one of several mathematical impossibilities that must be accepted by OVer's in order to support their views.

It is impossible to have an infinite number of historical events within a single time line. Consider this line from the Kalam Argument:

1. The series of events in time is a collection formed by adding one member after another.
2. A collection formed by adding one member after another cannot be actually infinite.
3. Therefore, the series of events in time cannot be actually infinite.

This syllogism is flawed if some assumptions are incorrect. Others have demonstrated the possibility (common sense apart from pages of proofs is also sufficient).

Bruce Ware, strident critic of Open Theism, has rejected eternal now/timelessness in favor of endless time. This is a start for him, but he does not follow through far enough and still retains his modified, traditional Calvinistic views.

A vs B time theory discussions are not simplistic.

 

[Lon]

How does middle knowledge or simple foreknowledge explain this free action from trillions of years ago? How does compatibilism/determinism explain it? Does God give me the desire that I must act upon to make random nonsense?

ifj=29ut90-jgobfob[vmq= eghe4=0mdlkmeloeg004tu34u=24ut=24ut=2u0jgjo;ldmmvmmvmslg[/quote]
Chaos would be a random universe. Your gibberish isn't chaos. There are values in it we all recognize. Your dna patterns sprawled out by a computer would look like gibberish, yet God knows them in detail despite the length. Continue that toward 6 billion people and we see that trillions and trillions, buzillions and buzillions is no recognizable limit.
Because it is impossible for God to be constrained to a time line, He knew you'd type and what you'd type. Again, Foreknowledge does not make a thing happen. It is recognizing a thing will happen.

Today I decided between eating out or at home or what type of cuisine to have. I like Vietnamese and East Indian. I worked and wanted to stay home and bring in Viet. My wife wanted to go out and have Indian. We did the latter, but it could have gone either way (bad wind storm almost pushed us to home). How could something this simple, let alone trillions of mundance and moral choices, be foreknown as a certainty from before creation?! If it involves desires, how does God know what desires and how would he actualize a possible world to ensure the complexity of things would be exactly what He wants and knows? How can He just look ahead and see things that are not there and that may or may not actualize as expected?

ieowg390g390y=049y0=3uy0=934tgoplm lkdfmvoierjgo3mgoermgoirmgoembormboeohq9jhg389399038u

Asked another way, How can God remember everything from eternity past. Trillions and trillions doesn't even express a period in an encyclopedia set compared to eternity. You are trying to use #'s to argue and neglecting what an eternity of trillions would necessarily be.

On top of that, your considerations are all # constraints. Infinite is not expressed in numbers. They can be used to help express but they are incapable of expressing eternity because it goes forever in inexpressible continuance.

Instead of gibberish, use #'s. When you are done it still won't even represent a period in an encyclopedia set compared to eternity. Wait a billion years, and it still won't be time to consider a microscopic dot that helps make that period.

It is impossible for God to be constrained to duration/sequence.

 

[godrulz]

Scripture reveals God experiencing sequence/duration/succession without it being a limitations on God. Will, intellect, emotions (personal being) presuppose this. Timelessness would be a limitation on God to act temporally and it is incoherent (anyone can make assumptive statements like you do, but proof is in the pudding).

 

[Lon]

You are so completely stupid.

Prayer finds its way to God.:dunce::duh:

I don't think OV has a problem with omnipresence, if that helps. I've seen them express this truth. I believe you are all on your own.
Try Revelation 3:20. If a light does or doesn't go on for you respectively, please rethink your stupid assessment (acquiescence will clarify, ignorance will qualify as Assurance points to here).

Well, can't argue with that :chuckle:

 

[Lon]

<-----------creation-------First Coming------5th century-----2008----2011---------->

I do not see your problem...don't confuse instants and intervals....endless time does not preclude things from happening in sequence. I asked a mathematician about infinity/eternity and she agreed that an eternal being can exist in an endless duration of past time without beginning and still arrive at a point in the future....in your view, creation becomes co-eternal with God.

Yes it does. You and she are neglecting something here. The time line progresses eternally into the past: The line does not stop moving. There is no point at which forward momentum occurs.

..in your view, creation becomes co-eternal with God.

No, you are bringing your own subset into that conclusion. God is relational to, but not constrained by time. Time is part of the creation.

Scripture reveals God experiencing sequence/duration/succession without it being a limitations on God. Will, intellect, emotions (personal being) presuppose this. Timelessness would be a limitation on God to act temporally and it is incoherent (anyone can make assumptive statements like you do, but proof is in the pudding).

God is both, relational to, and unconstrained by time.

 

[Delmar]

How can God exist eternally in the past if he is in time? How would He have ever arrived at this point?

That is a fun question, but even if there is no starting point, it is illogical to say you couldn't be where you are. Everybody has to be somewhere (or some time).

 

[Lighthouse]

I don't think OV has a problem with omnipresence, if that helps. I've seen them express this truth. I believe you are all on your own.
Try Revelation 3:20. If a light does or doesn't go on for you respectively, please rethink your stupid assessment (acquiescence will clarify, ignorance will qualify as Assurance points to here).

God is everywhere He wants to be. He is not in place He does not want to be.

Now, what does Revelation 3:20 have to do with anything?

 

[godrulz]

Just because one can draw a line infinitely around the world (equator, etc.) does not mean we cannot travel from New York to Jerusalem.

Duration is NOT a limitation on God (though it can be for man). The fact that the first coming happens before the Second Coming for God shows clear sequence without compromising His eternality/uncreatedness.

Greater minds will have to break Lon's loggerjam in his brain (his logic is faulty, but I cannot give the detail necessary to correct it).

 

[Lon]

This syllogism is flawed if some assumptions are incorrect. Others have demonstrated the possibility (common sense apart from pages of proofs is also sufficient).

Bruce Ware, strident critic of Open Theism, has rejected eternal now/timelessness in favor of endless time. This is a start for him, but he does not follow through far enough and still retains his modified, traditional Calvinistic views.

A vs B time theory discussions are not simplistic.

"This does not mean God is outside the flow of time in every sense.
Biblical teaching shows this is true...that... [God] is not bound by time."
-5 views

 

[Lon]

Just because one can draw a line infinitely around the world (equator, etc.) does not mean we cannot travel from New York to Jerusalem.

Duration is NOT a limitation on God (though it can be for man). The fact that the first coming happens before the Second Coming for God shows clear sequence without compromising His eternality/uncreatedness.

Greater minds will have to break Lon's loggerjam in his brain (his logic is faulty, but I cannot give the detail necessary to correct it).

Asserting. If you suggest a log-jam, you must prove a log-jam.
"I cannot give the detail necessary" means you are asserting.

If duration were not a limitation, you in fact are supporting against your own view. It supports one leg of both relational to and not limited by time.

You just asserted against your own proposition.

Regarding your line around the world, I agree you could do such with each end continuing around forever, but your proof is actually a circumference (segment) explanation (it stops once it reaches it's starting point). - 24,901.55 miles

 

[Lon]

That is a fun question, but even if there is no starting point, it is illogical to say you couldn't be where you are. Everybody has to be somewhere (or some time).

You have to be somewhere and in some time. God is everywhere and thus, every when. Because His past is eternal, it never reaches a point of forward momentum if He is constrained by duration and sequence. If He were not unconstrained by it, He'd never be able to reach a point called now.

Don't make GodRulz' mistake here either. God is both relational to and unconstrained by time, duration, sequence.

 

[Lon]

God is everywhere He wants to be. He is not in place He does not want to be.

Now, what does Revelation 3:20 have to do with anything?

"God is everywhere:"

And the LORD said, “Because the outcry against Sodom and Gomorrah is great, and because their sin is very grave, I will go down now and see whether they have done altogether according to the outcry against it that has come to Me; and if not, I will know.”
-Genesis 18:20-21

 

[Lighthouse]

"God is everywhere:"

Where does it say that?