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Prone-to-Think
Registered Member
Date Joined Jun 2004
Total Posts : 2
| Posted 6/10/2004 12:41 PM (GMT -6) |   | I am new here as seen by the fact that this is my first posting. I am a pastor in WA who has been investing into understanding open theism. I was formally a Calvinistic pastor in a Calvinistic church, but things have since changed in very positive ways. Anyway I was curious about the idea that God knows all that is knowable. My question is, does God know us before we are conceived? I ask this because conception has millions of variables/possibilities until the union of a particular sperm and egg. Before that union the natural disposition, intellectual acuity, abnormalities of a mental or physical nature, gender, and appearance would be unknown. Thus I would think that one would be unknowable until conception, yet I see Jer. 1:5 where God knew him before He formed him in the womb. May seem like a mundane thought but just something I was mulling over. Any insights?
Thanks
Matt
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Alan Rhoda
Registered Member
Date Joined May 2002
Total Posts : 680
| Posted 6/10/2004 2:45 PM (GMT -6) | | Hi, Matt.
I like your handle--"Prone-to-Think".
PTT: I was curious about the idea that God knows all that is knowable.
Alan: Omniscience--knowing all and only truths--entails knowing all that is knowable, but the converse is not necessarily so. Some open theists (e.g., Hasker) have in the past suggested that there might be truths, such as truths about the contingent future, that are not knowable and that, therefore, it would not be a defect for God not to know them. This position is rather passe among leading edge open theists nowadays, and has been abandoned by many of its former champions for one main reason: All the reasons we have for thinking that the contingent future is not (infallibly) knowable are also reasons for thinking that statements about the contingent future are not, strictly speaking, true. Accordingly, the open theist does not have to restrict or redefine omniscience. Rather, the open theist can affirm that God knows all and only truths and simply deny that predictions about the contingent future are, strictly speaking, true.
PTT: My question is, does God know us before we are conceived? I ask this because conception has millions of variables/possibilities until the union of a particular sperm and egg. Before that union the natural disposition, intellectual acuity, abnormalities of a mental or physical nature, gender, and appearance would be unknown. Thus I would think that one would be unknowable until conception, yet I see Jer. 1:5 where God knew him before He formed him in the womb.
Alan: That's a good question. I'm not a Hebrew scholar, but one question I have about Jer. 1:5 is whether we should read it as saying "Before I had begun forming you at all ..." or "Before I had fully formed you ..." The latter reading, which may or may not be consistent with the Hebrew for all I know, would not entail God's knowing us before conception.
Also, to "know", as it is used here, seems to speak more of familiarity or intimacy, rather than propositional knowledge of facts. This supports the second reading because, assuming that our souls don't preexist our bodies, one can't be familiar with something that doesn't yet exist.
Furthermore, Jeremiah may be a special case. We are specifically told here that God had sovereign determined that Jeremiah would be a prophet prior to Jeremiah's birth. There is no suggestion in this passage, however, that God has sovereignly determined what all person's are to be before their birth. In other words, God has this kind of foreknowledge of Jeremiah because God has determined some things about Jeremiah's life, but we cannot extrapolate from that to the general claim that God has the same sort of foreknowledge regarding every individual. Again, Jeremiah may be a special case.
Hope that helps. God bless.
Alan | | Back to Top | | |
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Laika
Registered Member
Date Joined Mar 2003
Total Posts : 2433
| Posted 6/10/2004 3:12 PM (GMT -6) | | quote:
Originally posted by Prone-to-Think
I am new here as seen by the fact that this is my first posting. I am a pastor in WA who has been investing into understanding open theism.
Welcome, Prone-to-Think. Is that "inclined" to think or "reclined" to think? 
You should look up Mike Saia, last I heard he was in the Seattle area. We took an OT seminar from him, circa 1984.
quote:
My question is, does God know us before we are conceived? I ask this because conception has millions of variables/possibilities until the union of a particular sperm and egg. Before that union the natural disposition, intellectual acuity, abnormalities of a mental or physical nature, gender, and appearance would be unknown. Thus I would think that one would be unknowable until conception, yet I see Jer. 1:5 where God knew him before He formed him in the womb. May seem like a mundane thought but just something I was mulling over. Any insights?
My minority opinion about this is that God accepts whoever we create. That's one of the powers the creator God has given us, the power to create new life. Whoever we create, He accepts with open arms. Here's why I hold this minority opinion:
1. There are NO "unwanted" births; God accepts whoever shows up.
2. If a birth was due to bad/wrong decisions/circumstances, God did NOT ordain those bad/wrong decisions/circumstances but He does welcome the guiltless, innocent child. So if one is born out of wedlock or due to a rape, whatever, God did NOT ordain/plan/determine those circumstances but He does accept the child. He works good out of a bad situation.
There may be specific people God does orchestrate the arrival of, besides Jesus, but I think those are exceptions to the rule.
inside you the time moves and she don't fade
the ghost in you she don't fade | | Back to Top | | |
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Prone-to-Think
Registered Member
Date Joined Jun 2004
Total Posts : 2
| Posted 6/11/2004 9:01 AM (GMT -6) | | Laika - That would be "inclined" except on some days where I choose to pull up my XBOX and unplug my brain - then it is "reclined". Thanks for your insights. I liked it!
Alan - Thanks for your thoughts on Jer. 1:5. I was thinking along the same possible lines but wasnt sure. Like I loosely shared this whole open position is really interesting to me right now and has been for the last year and a half.
Grge - Thanks for your work. My journey started with setting out to refute some of your work on Trinitarian Warfare Theodicy and in the process my own Reformed grid was compromised. At the end of the day no system is sacred - only the text. You have been a major influence in resetting my exegetical priorities...Thanks (though my Calvinist brothers and congregation are not so thankful : ) . BTW - good job on distilling your more weighty work into "Is God to Blame?" | | Back to Top | | |
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Tigress
Registered Member
Date Joined Feb 2003
Total Posts : 1252
| Posted 6/11/2004 10:56 AM (GMT -6) | | Hi!
In regards to God knowing us before we're conceived: I wonder if to "know" here means more the planning stages for each person's personality, rather than knowing exactly how a person will actually turn out - God's intentions vs. the actual final result. Granted, if as I think OVer's believe, the result of a person's personality is almost entirely dependent upon two random people coming together in sexual union, once the egg is fertilized, maybe that's when God begins deciding how He wants that person's character traits to be. Obviously we now know that genetic heredity is a huge factor in determining an individual's character traits, as well as the environment in which he/she is raised. But, there must be some ingredients that God adds to the pot while it's cooking, so to speak.
When I did some paintings, before I actually started painting them, I "knew" them in my mind. I knew how I wanted them to look and what they would express. But, a lot of how they would turn out was already predetermined by the resources I had available to me - the canvas, the color of the paints, the brushes, and my own talent or lack thereof. Even if I planned for my paintings to look a certain way, my talent wasn't always capable of reproducing that image on canvas.  Obviously, this analogy is flawed in that God is talented enough to make a person a certain way, but it also is dependent upon certain factors like which two parents came together and their particular genetic history, as well as the environment the child would be raised in. Also, the child will definitely be born into a fallen world, so he/she will for sure not be perfect. Yet, God "knows" how He intends the person to be and what plan He will have for him/her. I guess the question then becomes, is God's intentions for an individual's final outcome ever guaranteed to happen?
The only thing I can think of is this: that's where faith and obedience come in. Even if we were raised in a certain environment and got a certain genetic history from each of our parents, through the Holy Spirit's power we can still overcome those obstacles and be what God wants us to be if we trust and obey Him to make it happen. There are examples all over the Bible of people who it seemed didn't make sense to be called to do the things they were called by God to do. God calls the weak to display His power through them. Moses had a public speaking problem, yet He said many great things with the help of Aaron. Jeremiah thought of himself as just a child (I think it was Jeremiah), yet God still enabled him to prophecy mightily. Ruth was a Moabite widow, yet she showed great faith and became an ancestor of David and Jesus. Jacob was the second born, but through his cunning and Esau's foolishness, he received the first-born's blessing. Mary Magdalene was demon-possessed and possibly a prostitute yet she became a powerful witness for Jesus and He used her example of faith and devotion to teach the disciples. There just don't seem to be any limitations to God's ability to carry out His plans for each individual if we just cooperate with Him despite what we were born with and into.
Tigress 
"Name a shrub after me. Preferably one that's prickly and difficult to eradicate."
-Captain Jack Aubrey
"Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World" | | Back to Top | | |
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1Heart
Registered Member
Date Joined Feb 2004
Total Posts : 1128
| Posted 6/11/2004 7:00 PM (GMT -6) | | quote:
Originally posted by Laika
My minority opinion about this is that God accepts whoever we create. That's one of the powers the creator God has given us, the power to create new life. Whoever we create, He accepts with open arms. Here's why I hold this minority opinion:
1. There are NO "unwanted" births; God accepts whoever shows up.
2. If a birth was due to bad/wrong decisions/circumstances, God did NOT ordain those bad/wrong decisions/circumstances but He does welcome the guiltless, innocent child. So if one is born out of wedlock or due to a rape, whatever, God did NOT ordain/plan/determine those circumstances but He does accept the child. He works good out of a bad situation.
One thing is certain. He foreknew, He determined --- that He would love us with an unfathomable love, "while we were yet sinners!"
God Bless,
Jo-Anne
"Sometimes all we can do is go back to the character of God, and drop anchor there."
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GregBoyd
Registered Member
Date Joined Jul 2001
Total Posts : 1818
| Posted 6/13/2004 9:23 PM (GMT -6) | | | | |
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Ochuk
Registered Member
Date Joined Apr 2003
Total Posts : 102
| Posted 6/16/2004 11:12 AM (GMT -6) | |
quote:
My minority opinion about this is that God accepts whoever we create. That's one of the powers the creator God has given us, the power to create new life. Whoever we create, He accepts with open arms. Here's why I hold this minority opinion:
1. There are NO "unwanted" births; God accepts whoever shows up.
2. If a birth was due to bad/wrong decisions/circumstances, God did NOT ordain those bad/wrong decisions/circumstances but He does welcome the guiltless, innocent child. So if one is born out of wedlock or due to a rape, whatever, God did NOT ordain/plan/determine those circumstances but He does accept the child. He works good out of a bad situation.
There may be specific people God does orchestrate the arrival of, besides Jesus, but I think those are exceptions to the rule.
So the rule implies that God doesn't know who will be born througout all history? This is seems contrary to Scripture (Psalm 139:16, Acts 17:26-27, Romans 8:29-30).
Read my blog at ochuk.gizzar.com | | Back to Top | | |
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Rebecca
Registered Member
Date Joined May 2004
Total Posts : 3
| Posted 6/20/2004 10:05 AM (GMT -6) | | quote:
Originally posted by Ochuk
quote:
My minority opinion about this is that God accepts whoever we create. That's one of the powers the creator God has given us, the power to create new life. Whoever we create, He accepts with open arms. Here's why I hold this minority opinion:
1. There are NO "unwanted" births; God accepts whoever shows up.
2. If a birth was due to bad/wrong decisions/circumstances, God did NOT ordain those bad/wrong decisions/circumstances but He does welcome the guiltless, innocent child. So if one is born out of wedlock or due to a rape, whatever, God did NOT ordain/plan/determine those circumstances but He does accept the child. He works good out of a bad situation.
There may be specific people God does orchestrate the arrival of, besides Jesus, but I think those are exceptions to the rule.
So the rule implies that God doesn't know who will be born througout all history? This is seems contrary to Scripture (Psalm 139:16, Acts 17:26-27, Romans 8:29-30).
I'd like to think that God is more actively involved than just accepting the children. I've heard of people who were "accidents" who found great comfort in a blueprint model simply because they realized that though they were an accident to their parents, they weren't an accident to God. Not that I'm advocating the blueprint model, but I can understand the comfort those people would find in it.
I think that God is aware of and is planning for every possiblity of an unwanted child, and that each child that is created by sinful man has been known by God and formed for His glory in order that the greatest possible good might be brought out of the bad situation. As sinful people are creating life by performing sinful acts, God is behind it all knitting together fearfully and wonderfully made children, ordaining their days in order that they might grow up to seek Him and reach out to Him.
If I was an unwanted child, I would take comfort in knowing that though my parents saw me afterward as a mistake, God knew me before as a blessing. The blueprint worldview would comfort me for awhile, until I started to take the view to it's logical conlusions... then I'd just be in a confused mess the way I am every time I try to get my mind around calvinism  | | Back to Top | | |
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Bobber
Registered Member
Date Joined Jun 2004
Total Posts : 199
| Posted 6/26/2004 1:51 AM (GMT -6) | | quote:
I am new here as seen by the fact that this is my first posting. I am a pastor in WA who has been investing into understanding open theism. I was formally a Calvinistic pastor in a Calvinistic church, but things have since changed in very positive ways. Anyway I was curious about the idea that God knows all that is knowable. My question is, does God know us before we are conceived? I ask this because conception has millions of variables/possibilities until the union of a particular sperm and egg. Before that union the natural disposition, intellectual acuity, abnormalities of a mental or physical nature, gender, and appearance would be unknown. Thus I would think that one would be unknowable until conception, yet I see Jer. 1:5 where God knew him before He formed him in the womb. May seem like a mundane thought but just something I was mulling over. Any insights?
I have a different view then some on here for I believe that God does know all things but then again it could rightly be said it doesn’t or didn’t depending on your vantage point of looking at it. Ive suggested in another post that God doesn’t know things from the standpoint of time but once time does unfold he has the capacity to blast a revelation back through time to the time before the creation of the earth. Everything within time [if I can say it this way] splashes down on a canvas so he can therefore see the whole picture from A to Z, or the Alpha and Omega…So I guess it could be argued there is two loops….the first time he didn’t know, thus you have all the scriptures which state he didn’t know this or that…..but then the second loop where you see revealings that he did know.
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Humphrey Bogart
Registered Member
Date Joined Jun 2003
Total Posts : 205
| Posted 6/26/2004 3:50 AM (GMT -6) | | John Earp: The Hebrew in Ps. 139:16 is ambiguous. It simply says, "all of them that were written..." "Days" is not in the original text. The King Jimmy version has "all of my members" (body parts), which actually fits the context of a developing embryo.
Albert: This is not actually true John. The word "days" (yamim) is certainly there in the BHS text. It reads "ve`al-sifreka kullam yikkatevu yamim yutsaru" (literally, "upon your book all were written [the] days [that] will be formed"). I don't know if there is a textual variant here which affects the KJV, but BHS is the standard Hebrew text.
How this affects the open view, I don't know.
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GregBoyd
Registered Member
Date Joined Jul 2001
Total Posts : 1818
| Posted 6/26/2004 5:38 AM (GMT -6) | |
Albert: This is not actually true John. The word "days" (yamim) is certainly there in the BHS text. It reads "ve`al-sifreka kullam yikkatevu yamim yutsaru" (literally, "upon your book all were written [the] days [that] will be formed"). I don't know if there is a textual variant here which affects the KJV, but BHS is the standard Hebrew text.
How this affects the open view, I don't know.
Greg: It affects things only in that some take this verse to mean that all the DAYS OF OUR LIFE were numbered from birth... hence the future is not open with regard to how long we'll live. This view has attained paradigmatic mythic status in western culture as evidenced by the repeated slogan "I guess it was his time" [to die]. Everyone dies RIGHT ON TIME. Now, its bad enough to develop a metaphysical stance on the basis of poetry to start with. But when one comes to appreciate how ambiguous the Hebrew is, it shows this paradigmatic view to be without foundation altogether.
BTW, Roger Forester (God's Strategy in Human History) gave me an interpretation in Ireland last year I'd never heard before. He thinks it obvious, given the theme of the whole Psalm, that the author is referring to the days of the gestation period. In other words, it speaks of how things are formed in the womb in a divinely designed time sequence. Interesting idea.
Greg
"The responsibility is with the chooser -- God is blameless." Plato, Republic, 10. | | Back to Top | | |
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PotOnWheel
Registered Member
Date Joined Jul 2001
Total Posts : 9890
| Posted 6/26/2004 5:56 AM (GMT -6) | | Here's a Calvinist/Reformed pastor's comments that are
WELL WORTH READING
that were posted on the topic of Impassibility.
But they also concern PAST, PRESENT and FUTURE.
So I'll post it here for everyone's consideration:
quote:
Re: God's impassibility
MVDM wrote:
> No matter how we look at it, if we do give God pleasure, it is ONLY because He first set the conditions such that this could be the case. He made us, and He delights in *His* creation.
>
> He designed his creation such that it could give him pleasure -----or sorrow............hence the mystery of His choice to then restore and finally bring to a new creation one that will only cause delight---where there will be no sin, no tears, no death.
>
> God first, middle, and last.
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John Earp
Registered Member
Date Joined Oct 2002
Total Posts : 1715
| Posted 6/26/2004 11:38 AM (GMT -6) | | quote:
Originally posted by GregBoyd
Greg: It affects things only in that some take this verse to mean that all the DAYS OF OUR LIFE were numbered from birth... hence the future is not open with regard to how long we'll live. This view has attained paradigmatic mythic status in western culture as evidenced by the repeated slogan "I guess it was his time" [to die]. Everyone dies RIGHT ON TIME. Now, its bad enough to develop a metaphysical stance on the basis of poetry to start with. But when one comes to appreciate how ambiguous the Hebrew is, it shows this paradigmatic view to be without foundation altogether.
A somewhat humorous (though tragic) example of this sort of fatalistic thinking struck me last year at a family BBQ we attended last July 4th. My sister-in-law's boyfriend said, "I just believe when it's your time to go, you'll go" (meaning "die"), as he chugged down several beers and smoked like there was no tomorrow. I know you won't believe I was capable of this, but my smart-aleck response to him was, "You can sure speed up your time by doing something stupid."
quote:
BTW, Roger Forester (God's Strategy in Human History) gave me an interpretation in Ireland last year I'd never heard before. He thinks it obvious, given the theme of the whole Psalm, that the author is referring to the days of the gestation period. In other words, it speaks of how things are formed in the womb in a divinely designed time sequence. Interesting idea.
Greg
Excellent. I think that is a superbly possible interpretation.
"The Discovery of new truth will modify old views and opinions, and there is perhaps no end to this process with finite minds in any world." Charles G. Finney, Systematic Theology.
revivaltheology.net
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Bobber
Registered Member
Date Joined Jun 2004
Total Posts : 199
| Posted 6/27/2004 2:27 AM (GMT -6) | | quote:
I take my comfort in confidence that God will win in the end and is even now working to bring good out of evil.
Im at a lose to understand how God can bring good out of evil, the evil you mentioned in your last post. [evil like rape, murder, or snuff movies] What good can come out of those? I think rather the only thing that can be said about evil being allowed to be present is that it was never Gods will to exist, but rather something he had to allow so that this period of time [the last six thousand years] can be shown through eternities of eternities as a time where God gave the space to show what independence from God would look like. No creature will ever be able to say that God in love didn't allow the demonstration of it to settle the issue once and for all. If God didn’t' allow it a creature might charge God as not allowing creation to demonstrate what they could do without him....therefore he would continually be claimed to be selfish.
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PotOnWheel
Registered Member
Date Joined Jul 2001
Total Posts : 9890
| Posted 6/27/2004 2:41 AM (GMT -6) | | quote:
Originally posted by GregBoyd
Greg: Amazingly, many seem to find comfort in believing that every child at Auswitz gasped their last breath "right on time". The divine timing of every fatal rape, every murder, every snuff film was JUST RIGHT -- set in stone an eternity before the whole thing began. Personally, I can think of few thoughts more macabre than this. I take my comfort in confidence that God will win in the end and is even now working to bring good out of evil.
Just my opinion,
Greg
THEY HAVE TO BELIEVE IN (1) GOD-TRAPPED-IN-TIME (PREDESTINATION), (2) GOD AS THE "PRIME MOVER", AND AN UNBIBLICAL LACK OF THE ROLE OF HUMAN FREEDOM!
(God is "Creator" -- NOT "Prime Mover!") | | Back to Top | | |
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Humphrey Bogart
Registered Member
Date Joined Jun 2003
Total Posts : 205
| Posted 6/27/2004 6:49 PM (GMT -6) | | quote:
Greg: It affects things only in that some take this verse to mean that all the DAYS OF OUR LIFE were numbered from birth... hence the future is not open with regard to how long we'll live. This view has attained paradigmatic mythic status in western culture as evidenced by the repeated slogan "I guess it was his time" [to die]. Everyone dies RIGHT ON TIME. Now, its bad enough to develop a metaphysical stance on the basis of poetry to start with. But when one comes to appreciate how ambiguous the Hebrew is, it shows this paradigmatic view to be without foundation altogether.
BTW, Roger Forester (God's Strategy in Human History) gave me an interpretation in Ireland last year I'd never heard before. He thinks it obvious, given the theme of the whole Psalm, that the author is referring to the days of the gestation period. In other words, it speaks of how things are formed in the womb in a divinely designed time sequence. Interesting idea.
This last suggestion actually does make a lot of sense. The statement in question is immediately preceded by the statement "your eyes saw my embryo". If we consider this as parallelism, then the second statement can be taken as a related expansion upon the first: all of the days of my development in the womb were written in God's book before they happened. It need not even be individualised; i.e. that God has determined in general the sequence of events in the development of an embryo, especially since the Hebrew lacks "for me".
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