Open Theism Stirs Controversy on College Campuses
- Thread starter Christine
- Start date
Maybe you could say in your own words what you think are some of the best points and or arguments in favor of a closed future.
Christine
New member
I am merely showing that God had a good reason for using a figure of speech in this chapter.
So? Your response was a "standard Open View response."
If this chapter's passages dealing with "repenting" and such phrases are figures of speech, then you're interpertation of God literally changing his mind and repenting would be incorrect.
When God said that He repented of making Saul king, the figure of speech means that God was extremely angry with Saul's actions and used such a figure to discourage others from following after Saul's wickedness.
Did I say these figures of speech made the message more complicated? No, I didn't, because they don't.
As I said above, it means God is angry with King Saul and his sinful actions.
Anger and hatred.
I never said verse 29 wasn't an anthropopathia. It is, in fact, anthropopathia.
STONE
New member
"Him, being delivered by the determinate counsel and foreknowledge of God, ye have taken, and by wicked hands have crucified and slain: Whom God hath raised up, having loosed the pains of death: because it was not possible that he should be holden of it."
Next, explain the difference between "determinate counsel" and "foreknowledge".
Next, explain the difference between "determinate counsel" and "foreknowledge".
Some of the future is determined and settled by God (e.g. the incarnation, death, resurrection, Second Coming, future judgments). Other aspects of the future are open and unsettled (e.g. free choices like who will win the Superbowl in 10 years, the eternal destiny of an infant before they receive or reject Christ, what I will eat for lunch in 3 years, if I am even alive, etc.).
So, the determined, predictive prophecies will come to pass due to God's ability (not foreknowledge) to make them come to pass (Is. 46; Messianic prophecies, etc.).
Many other prophecies are conditional and may or may not come to pass depending on the response of the people to God's call to repentance (Jonah; Hezekiah). These prophecies are not predictive, but proclamations to make a choice. Depending on the choice, the consequences will vary.
So, the determined, predictive prophecies will come to pass due to God's ability (not foreknowledge) to make them come to pass (Is. 46; Messianic prophecies, etc.).
Many other prophecies are conditional and may or may not come to pass depending on the response of the people to God's call to repentance (Jonah; Hezekiah). These prophecies are not predictive, but proclamations to make a choice. Depending on the choice, the consequences will vary.
godrulz gave an excellent response to this question. God's foreknowledge is the knowledge of what He is going to do. And He has not always known things He is going to do. And, most times, he doesn't know what He's going to do, until a few moments before He does it.
See my above post for an explanation of what foreknowledge means.
Determinate counsel means that God has determined, in counsel within Himself, what He is going to do. And His foreknowledge reaches no further than what He has determined. Except in some instances where he knws something that is going to happen in the immediate future, because He can see all things.
Ex: I am walking to a specific location. God knows what way I will take to get there, because He knows which way I am headed. Especially if I have gone there before. And if there is something around the corner, athat I am about to turn, God knows that I will come across it.
The idea of 2 motifs in Scripture (some of the future is open and some of the future is settled....hence the two groups of proof texts used by Open Theists and Calvinists) is emphasized by Dr. Gregory Boyd in "God of the Possible" etc. I do not know of any exclusive Open Theist commentaries. My other thoughts are my own compiled from 25 years of study and numerous books for and against Open Theism. Ultimately, I explicitly see the two motifs in Scripture and are my personal conclusions as to what the Bible teaches (inductive/exegesis vs deductive/eisegesis).
Open Theists take both sets of passages literally (appropriate). Calvinists take the predestination passages literally, while taking the open (and God changing His mind, etc.) passages figuratively (questionable hermeneutic, unless obviously figurative).
Boyd's website looks at both sets of verses. It makes more sense to take them in a straightforward manner as God's revelation of Himself, His creation, and His ways.
This alternate view is more about the openness of God's creation, than the 'openness of God'. God's great attributes are affirmed, but He is seen as dynamic, personal, responsive (Hebraic) rather than the static, impassible, absolutely immutable god of the Greeks.
A fundamental error is to assume that because God determines some of the future (as in this specific case of Christ's ministry that was part of His definite plan and foreknowledge to redeem mankind...it was a possibility before the Fall, but became a certainty/necessity after the Fall. It did not become an actuality until 4 B.C.-29 A.D.), that He must determine or know all of the future as settled. Other verses would support the idea that some of the future is unsettled and known as such. We cannot pit these verses against each other (the Bible does not contradict itself), but we may have to expand our thinking to reconcile equally valid truths (cf. Trinity).
(some thoughts from Boyd and myself) Acts 2:23; 4:28 shows that Christ was not crucified by accident. This defining event in world history included a number of predestined aspects. The incarnation and crucifixion were part of God's plan for centuries. The predestined event included non-predestined players. Herod, Pilate, Judas, etc. did things of their own free will. They were not indispensable to ensuring Christ would die as the Lamb of God.
So, do not read more into the text than it merits. This verse is not a proof text for the exhaustive foreknowledge or predestination of all events in the future. It merely affirms that the ministry of Christ was predetermined by God to achieve His plan of redemption. It would happen regardless of the choices of other free moral agents. Other events, like what clothes I will wear in a year, do not have to be predetermined or foreknown as a certainty before the choices are made. There is no proof text to say that every moral and mundane choice is predestined. This would negate any responsibility, freedom, accountability, and self-determination (evident by the fact we are in the personal and moral image of God).
LightSon
New member
If that is a fundamental error, then isn't the following conclusion an error as well?
How in the world do you know that lighthouse? What verse of scripture teaches you that God doesn't know what He's going to do most of the time, let alone "a few moments before He does it?" A verse or 2 might be good.
You make God sound clueless.
If there was ever a case of one's preconcieved doctrinal ideas giving expression, this is it.
And while I'm on the topic, when did you become a Sozo-ite?
STONE
New member
Come now, it doesn't merely affirm Christ's predetermined ministry...but also foreknowledge (4268).
"Him, being delivered by the determinate counsel and foreknowledge of God"
foreknowledge-
n : knowledge of an event before it occurs [syn: precognition]
4268 prognosis { prog’-no-sis}
literally-
Pro: before, prior
gnosis: knowing, knowledge
Last edited: