Proof from the Bible that God is In Time
- Thread starter Nathon Detroit
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Go ahead, I think you are on his ignore list.
I just don't think that "open theism" has a foundation in Biblical truth. It jumps to conclusions that exclude truth. Systematics are needed in theology because Christian theology isn't developed without a foundation.
Huh?Well you know, dogs and cats can't live on love Knight.lain:
I think I better just go ahead and dial 911.
I would state that exact same thing about settled theism. So where does that leave us? :idunno:
I haven't seen you attempt any biblical foundation for your case. Would you like to start? Please show me where in the Bible we find that God is outside of time.
zippy2006
New member
Huh?
I think I better just go ahead and dial 911.
...another battle against the Open Theists won :reals:
And when do you plan on stating your case?
Name one.
Who laid the foundation? When was it laid?
Where? Neither you, not Lon, nor Paulos, or anyone else has made a single argument that would have you "winning" anything.
You have yet to prove that
1. God knows all things exhaustively eternally
2. God is outside of time
3. Time is created
I asked a question earlier though it seemed to get forgotten in the heat of the discussion. Could Bob, Knight, ghost or any of you with the open view tell me if this view has implications as it relates to our salvation? and if so what are they? I am just trying to understand the Open view vs. Settled view and it's implications in either case.
rainee
New member
First of all how how how am I going to catch up on all of this reading - yes reading - I find every response interesting.
Also for a bit there just about every one was ending their post with case closed or close thread (because it was a case closed) AND I never got to put that! I am just now reading page seven or eight or something and now y'all have moved on to Knight's brain cells or something - which hopefully are fine, of course.
Also one point:
NO ONE said what was going on with Joshua and the sun standing still even though Chatmaggot (oh my word what a nick) had talked to me first!
So hear this - if anyone thinks the sun standing still is not real or important
then you are doomed. Yes really. doomed.
Because Lazarus was called out of his grave late precisely so we could know he should have been decomposing and he should stink - but he wasn't and he didn't.
WE have to be able to do Joshua and the sun if we are going to move on to Lazarus and death.. please.
So Lon got me thinking. And Paulos too. Time.
What if in the account of Joshua, he really is given literally extra time.
What if time is not an element but actually an outcome, a result, simply, from other things happening?
What then? Would it be such an issue to think He could step in and out of it?
Also for a bit there just about every one was ending their post with case closed or close thread (because it was a case closed) AND I never got to put that! I am just now reading page seven or eight or something and now y'all have moved on to Knight's brain cells or something - which hopefully are fine, of course.
Also one point:
NO ONE said what was going on with Joshua and the sun standing still even though Chatmaggot (oh my word what a nick) had talked to me first!
So hear this - if anyone thinks the sun standing still is not real or important
then you are doomed. Yes really. doomed.
Because Lazarus was called out of his grave late precisely so we could know he should have been decomposing and he should stink - but he wasn't and he didn't.
WE have to be able to do Joshua and the sun if we are going to move on to Lazarus and death.. please.
So Lon got me thinking. And Paulos too. Time.
What if in the account of Joshua, he really is given literally extra time.
What if time is not an element but actually an outcome, a result, simply, from other things happening?
What then? Would it be such an issue to think He could step in and out of it?
I personally think that it speaks to the dangerous beliefs of Calvinist doctrine. Their foundations are built on a settled view of eternity. I'm not sure people who hear their message can be saved.
That's just my view. I doubt that I speak for Bob or Knight.
Since the esteemed Bob Enyart apparently is keeping track of this thread at the time I am writing this, I feel as though I am in need of some sort of introduction:
I have a B.A. in philosophy with a minor in Latin.
I presently am pursuing an M.A. in philosophy with a heavy emphasis on medieval philosophy, and, in particular, St. Thomas Aquinas.
My main interests are the Greek Neoplatonists, and when I have free time for my own reading, I tend to read St. Augustine and Kant. That said, I've read the entirety of Plato's Complete Works and Plotinus' Enneads as translated by Stephen MacKenna.
It is particularly in light of my Platonic interests that I feel as though I can be of some help in answering the problems presented in this thread.
To clarify: What is meant by "time"? We use the word so often, but so few of us really stop and consider what is meant by the time. At any rate, you've associated time with sequential change, which at any rate makes my job easier.
This does not follow (I am aware that you set it up in order to be refuted and so to answer the refutations). That said, Mr. Enyart, there was no need for you to go this route. You just as easily could have appealed to the creation of the world. Clearly, if God created the world in time, then God must likewise be in time.
If you assert that this is so, then it applies to the Incarnation also. If you deny that this is so, then there is no reason why the reasoning should apply in the case of the Incarnation. If it is the case that God is able to create in time without Himself being in time, then we can say the same equally both in the case of the Incarnation and in the case of the creation of the world.
Clearly, though, this does not follow. If you assert that God exists in time, but you assert that the world has a beginning, you must confess that God temporally was present prior to the creation of the world. Which begs the question...What was God doing before He created the world?
In fact, if you admit that the world had a beginning in time and that God likewise has a temporally infinite existence, then you must confess a further absurdity: an infinite amount of time elapsed prior to the creation of the world. If this is the case, then I must confess that two things are the case:
1. God is awefully lazy if He spent an infinite amount of time just hanging before He finally got around to creating the world. Your God is far more slothful than any Democrat I've ever met.
2. Even worse: if an infinite amount of time elapsed prior to the creation of the world, then, in fact, you must confess that it is impossible that this world should exist at all. It's impossible to traverse an actual infinity. If an infinite amount of time elapsed prior to the creation of the world, then God would still be waiting to create the world.
I don't reject the argument on these grounds. I reject the idea of a temporal God because natural reason abhors such an idea. I reject the argument because it simply doesn't follow. God doesn't have to undergo change in assuming a human nature any more than the subject "I" (as a noumenal existence) has to undergo change by experiencing a multitude of phenomena (representations in the mind...say, this computer).
This is no reason to reject the idea. Note that St. Augustine incorporates the Greek idea, and I'm sure that this teaching is present in the other church fathers. If anything, your philosophically untrained eyes are hindering you from understanding even the theological truths of the Bible.
Consider John 1:1-14. To assert that the Logos of which St. John speaks here underwent a change in the incarnation is completely to miss the meaning of "Logos" in this case. Why "Logos"? Hint: Philo of Alexandria used the same word. Hint: Philo of Alexandria read the Timaeus.
This is a poor argument. You are missing 1. the possibility of metaphorical/colloquial meaning (apparently temporal phrases used to denote non-temporal meanings) and 2. that even if 1 is false, you're still missing the probability that the language used to convey the ideas is deficient.
Neither St. Augustine nor the Platonists assume this at all. This is a conclusion, not a premise. Consider reading book XI of Confessions. If we say that God either is esse ipse subsistens (subsistent being) or something greater than that, then it must follow that God is eternal. How can you add to or diminish pure being? Anything you add to being must exist; therefore it's already present. Diminish pure being? Even more bizarre.
This is nonsense. What was God doing for the forever "before" He created the world? Twiddling His metaphorical thumbs?
The second person of the Trinity is "now" Jesus relative to the created order.
There's simply no need to assert this. The human nature is created and finite. The Logos is not.
I fail to see why this verse says what you want it to. I grant you that, in the course of time, Adam was born prior to Christ. I grant that. What I deny is that God undergoing this moment of history (the Incarnation, namely, which happens after Adam) actually effects a change on the part of the Divine Word. There's simply no reason to assert this.
This shows a poor understanding of what happened in the Incarnation. In the Incarnation, The Logos assumed a human nature. This is what is meant by the "hypostatic unity." The second person of the Blessed Trinity has two natures: one created, the other uncreated, one human, the other divine. They are brought in to a hypostatic unity insofar as they both inhere in the person of the Word.
From this, it is evident why your argument is an utter non sequitur.
How imperfect is your God that He has to think new thoughts? Is He so imcompetent, naive and unintelligent that He's "missing" something?
This is a gross misrepresentation of our view. But, before I defend what's actually our view, I feel the need to point out: In order to avoid the conclusion that God somehow is "in on" the crime, you simply wish to assert that God didn't know that it's happening? Some God you believe in.
But on the contrary: you and I both assert that God created the world. You and I both assert, I can only assume, that God is supremely good and rational. From this it follows that He created the best of all possible worlds. If this is the case, then surely, He must have known all possible configurations of all possible worlds; if not, how could He have chosen? Why create the world this way rather than that?
What a shoddy artificer your God is! :nono:
There is a twofold distinction that must be drawn. Insofar as God has eternally chosen to create the world in time, then God is eternally sovereign in relation to the world that He's chosen from all eternity to create. The very term "sovereign," however, is relative to us. In Himself, this is an inadequate predication.
You misunderstand what exhaustive foreknowledge is and what the formal object of that foreknowledge is. In knowing everything, God isn't knowing the world. Note that if you set it up this way, you have to admit that God exists in time. If God knows the world directly, and the world only exists in time, then God's knowledge is temporal.
But this is false. The object of God's knowledge is Himself. In knowing everything, what God actually knows is His own essence. For Him to know all possible worlds is for Him to know all of the possible ways in which His Goodness could be participated in creation.
There's a contradiction involved, I think. The past is suppositionally necessary: "whatever is, insofar as it is, necessarily is." We know that God won't change the past precisely because the past happened; it only could have happened insofar as God willed and created it thus.
Christ was not slain previously to his having been slain. That's ridiculous. What is meant is that God foreknew from all eternity that Christ should die on the cross for sinners. Nor does it follow that this means that the righteous dead would not need to wait.
God knew from all eternity who would believe and who would not. For what cause do you think that Christ wept in the garden? :idunno:
None of this follows.
Therefore God never could have created the world. Impossible to traverse an actual infinity and all that.
I have a B.A. in philosophy with a minor in Latin.
I presently am pursuing an M.A. in philosophy with a heavy emphasis on medieval philosophy, and, in particular, St. Thomas Aquinas.
My main interests are the Greek Neoplatonists, and when I have free time for my own reading, I tend to read St. Augustine and Kant. That said, I've read the entirety of Plato's Complete Works and Plotinus' Enneads as translated by Stephen MacKenna.
It is particularly in light of my Platonic interests that I feel as though I can be of some help in answering the problems presented in this thread.
To clarify: What is meant by "time"? We use the word so often, but so few of us really stop and consider what is meant by the time. At any rate, you've associated time with sequential change, which at any rate makes my job easier.
This does not follow (I am aware that you set it up in order to be refuted and so to answer the refutations). That said, Mr. Enyart, there was no need for you to go this route. You just as easily could have appealed to the creation of the world. Clearly, if God created the world in time, then God must likewise be in time.
If you assert that this is so, then it applies to the Incarnation also. If you deny that this is so, then there is no reason why the reasoning should apply in the case of the Incarnation. If it is the case that God is able to create in time without Himself being in time, then we can say the same equally both in the case of the Incarnation and in the case of the creation of the world.
Clearly, though, this does not follow. If you assert that God exists in time, but you assert that the world has a beginning, you must confess that God temporally was present prior to the creation of the world. Which begs the question...What was God doing before He created the world?
In fact, if you admit that the world had a beginning in time and that God likewise has a temporally infinite existence, then you must confess a further absurdity: an infinite amount of time elapsed prior to the creation of the world. If this is the case, then I must confess that two things are the case:
1. God is awefully lazy if He spent an infinite amount of time just hanging before He finally got around to creating the world. Your God is far more slothful than any Democrat I've ever met.
2. Even worse: if an infinite amount of time elapsed prior to the creation of the world, then, in fact, you must confess that it is impossible that this world should exist at all. It's impossible to traverse an actual infinity. If an infinite amount of time elapsed prior to the creation of the world, then God would still be waiting to create the world.
I don't reject the argument on these grounds. I reject the idea of a temporal God because natural reason abhors such an idea. I reject the argument because it simply doesn't follow. God doesn't have to undergo change in assuming a human nature any more than the subject "I" (as a noumenal existence) has to undergo change by experiencing a multitude of phenomena (representations in the mind...say, this computer).
This is no reason to reject the idea. Note that St. Augustine incorporates the Greek idea, and I'm sure that this teaching is present in the other church fathers. If anything, your philosophically untrained eyes are hindering you from understanding even the theological truths of the Bible.
Consider John 1:1-14. To assert that the Logos of which St. John speaks here underwent a change in the incarnation is completely to miss the meaning of "Logos" in this case. Why "Logos"? Hint: Philo of Alexandria used the same word. Hint: Philo of Alexandria read the Timaeus.
This is a poor argument. You are missing 1. the possibility of metaphorical/colloquial meaning (apparently temporal phrases used to denote non-temporal meanings) and 2. that even if 1 is false, you're still missing the probability that the language used to convey the ideas is deficient.
Neither St. Augustine nor the Platonists assume this at all. This is a conclusion, not a premise. Consider reading book XI of Confessions. If we say that God either is esse ipse subsistens (subsistent being) or something greater than that, then it must follow that God is eternal. How can you add to or diminish pure being? Anything you add to being must exist; therefore it's already present. Diminish pure being? Even more bizarre.
This is nonsense. What was God doing for the forever "before" He created the world? Twiddling His metaphorical thumbs?
The second person of the Trinity is "now" Jesus relative to the created order.
There's simply no need to assert this. The human nature is created and finite. The Logos is not.
I fail to see why this verse says what you want it to. I grant you that, in the course of time, Adam was born prior to Christ. I grant that. What I deny is that God undergoing this moment of history (the Incarnation, namely, which happens after Adam) actually effects a change on the part of the Divine Word. There's simply no reason to assert this.
This shows a poor understanding of what happened in the Incarnation. In the Incarnation, The Logos assumed a human nature. This is what is meant by the "hypostatic unity." The second person of the Blessed Trinity has two natures: one created, the other uncreated, one human, the other divine. They are brought in to a hypostatic unity insofar as they both inhere in the person of the Word.
From this, it is evident why your argument is an utter non sequitur.
How imperfect is your God that He has to think new thoughts? Is He so imcompetent, naive and unintelligent that He's "missing" something?
This is a gross misrepresentation of our view. But, before I defend what's actually our view, I feel the need to point out: In order to avoid the conclusion that God somehow is "in on" the crime, you simply wish to assert that God didn't know that it's happening? Some God you believe in.
But on the contrary: you and I both assert that God created the world. You and I both assert, I can only assume, that God is supremely good and rational. From this it follows that He created the best of all possible worlds. If this is the case, then surely, He must have known all possible configurations of all possible worlds; if not, how could He have chosen? Why create the world this way rather than that?
What a shoddy artificer your God is! :nono:
There is a twofold distinction that must be drawn. Insofar as God has eternally chosen to create the world in time, then God is eternally sovereign in relation to the world that He's chosen from all eternity to create. The very term "sovereign," however, is relative to us. In Himself, this is an inadequate predication.
You misunderstand what exhaustive foreknowledge is and what the formal object of that foreknowledge is. In knowing everything, God isn't knowing the world. Note that if you set it up this way, you have to admit that God exists in time. If God knows the world directly, and the world only exists in time, then God's knowledge is temporal.
But this is false. The object of God's knowledge is Himself. In knowing everything, what God actually knows is His own essence. For Him to know all possible worlds is for Him to know all of the possible ways in which His Goodness could be participated in creation.
There's a contradiction involved, I think. The past is suppositionally necessary: "whatever is, insofar as it is, necessarily is." We know that God won't change the past precisely because the past happened; it only could have happened insofar as God willed and created it thus.
Christ was not slain previously to his having been slain. That's ridiculous. What is meant is that God foreknew from all eternity that Christ should die on the cross for sinners. Nor does it follow that this means that the righteous dead would not need to wait.
God knew from all eternity who would believe and who would not. For what cause do you think that Christ wept in the garden? :idunno:
None of this follows.
Therefore God never could have created the world. Impossible to traverse an actual infinity and all that.
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IF the sun stopped in the sky today, how much more time would you have to do those things you can do when the sun is up?
Where does that leave us? lets just say that I understand what Bob is trying to convey and I have learned that some of what he teaches is correct and I have learned it from the truth that God is eternal and all knowing and outside of time. The problem with Bob's teaching that I see is that it leaves people in a misunderstanding as to how to apply time and His all knowing. How do I convey that Biblical truth to you or anyone else? I don't know but I do know that Bob isn't conveying it.
Well if you are asking... can a Calvinist be a Christian? Of course the answer is yes, I would never make the claim that somebody wasn't saved merely because they are a settled viewer.
However, I firmly believe that Calvinism and settled theism beliefs are the number one reason (as far as bad theology is concerned) that turn people away from God. I can't tell you how many atheists, agnostics, and "former believers" I meet that tell me that they just couldn't buy the notion that God predestines people to go to hell or predestines vile wicked behavior, or that God knew from an eternity past who they were supposed to marry, etc. That's why this issue is so important. Anything that wrongly depicts God's character and attributes runs the danger of turning people away, and settled theism is the number one offender.
Oh, and I also should add... settled theism is also a real killer for many Christian's walk with God. We know so many neat Christian folks who are just flat-out confused with God. They are constantly wondering why did God have me do this or that. What does God want me to do next??? They feel like they are in some cosmic gauntlet that God has devised for them. It truly gets in the way of their relationship with God.
P.S. I went to Del Frisco's last night. It was a blast! They had an amazing Frank Sinatra impersonator. I had a Drew Estate Undercrown, it was really good.
And this is what Open Theism is creating. Very close to atheism.
You might just win dumbest post of the year for that comment :thumb:
Lon
Well-known member
Regardless if you see it or not, yeah I did. He is both relational to, unconstrained by.
<--------------------------------------->
Well we already know you see through a glass darkly...
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