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Tom
Registered Member
Date Joined Jul 2001
Total Posts : 10353
| Posted 9/14/2002 12:36 AM (GMT -6) |   | Was reading Clarke's commentaries the other day. Found two nice comments by him (other than the quote of his included on CV's website:
Commentary on Hosea 14
"All this is easily accounted for on the doctrine of the contingency fo events, i.e., that poising a multitude of events on the possibility of being and not being, and leaving the will of man to turn the scale; and that God will not foreknow a thing as absolutely certain which it is his will to make contingent, a doctrine against which some solemn men have blasphemed, and philosophic infidels declaimed; but without which fate and dire necessity must be the universal governors, prayer be a useless meddling, and providence nothing but the ineluctable adamantine chain of unchangeable events."
Commentary on 1Sam 23 (David inquiring about the men of Keilah)
"...there is such a thing as contingency in human affairs; that is, God has poised many things between a possibilty of being and not being, leaving it to the will of the creature to turn the scale."
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GregBoyd
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Date Joined Jul 2001
Total Posts : 1818
| Posted 9/16/2002 4:01 AM (GMT -6) | | Check out his commentary on Genesis and Acts. He is even MORE explicit about the open future there.
But his thinking is a bit odd. At times he seems to suggest that God COULD foreknow what agents will do IF HE WANTED TO. But, to preserve freedom, he simply doesn't.
Thanks Tom
Doc
"In Christ...the ONLY THING that matters is faith energized by love." Galatians 5:6 | | Back to Top | | |
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yankee
Registered Member
Date Joined Jun 2002
Total Posts : 22
| Posted 9/16/2002 9:16 PM (GMT -6) | | Dear Greg,
You said, "But his thinking is a bit odd. At times he seems to suggest that God COULD foreknow what agents will do IF HE WANTED TO. But, to preserve freedom, he simply doesn't."
Might it be that Adam Clarke believed that God could foreordain what our choices would be as well as how we would choose and therefore foreknow how we would choose and yet at the same time maintain that He usually chooses not to do so or perhaps He has never chosen to do so even though He could choose to do so but hasn't due to His strong desire for our freely given obedience? This type of thinking doesn't seem at all odd to me. Must we who believe in a partially open future maintain that every choice we will ever make be made with a libertarian style free will? Does our theology really fall apart when we maintain that some of our choices will be made freely while others will be made compatablisticly? If we cannot accept one extreme as the truth, must we automatically jump over to the other extreme? Sometimes the truth is found somewhere in the middle. On one hand I do not believe that God would foreordain that we choose to do evil and therefore foreknow that we would choose to do evil. On the other hand I cannot bring myself around to denying God the right and ability to foreordain and therefore foreknow what some of our choices will be and also how we will COMPATABLISTICLY choose. This all ties in with the issue of PERSUASION and COERCION that I spoke of in an earlier thread because if God foreordains some of your choices and how you will choose then He therefore quite possibly makes it necessary for some COERCION to be used upon your will to choose. I wonder if Adam Clarke believed that God reserved unto himself the right to override our will to choose and even go to the extreme of managing the thoughts inside of our heads to guarantee how we will choose if that is what He deems necessary on an occasional basis? When we as open theists deny God the right and ability to use coercion upon our wills we leave our critics picturing our God in their minds as having his hands tied behind his back with chains He is powerless to break because He cannot achieve his purposes without our cooperation or at least somebodies' cooperation and He cannot make us or anyone else choose his way because He is under some obligation to refrain from using coercion upon our wills to choose. In an earlier thread It was explained to me that God owes us a free will to choose and that it is because of God's NATURE that He owes it to us. For the life of me I just can't seem to figure out what part of God's nature it is that makes him owe us a free will or at least prevents Him from being able to use coercion upon our will. I would love it immensely if the more well known advocates of the open view would devote more time in their writings to dealing with the subject of divine persuasion and divine coercion. If God is not sovereign over our wills to choose then can we really say that He is truly sovereign? Please remember that I only believe that God OCCASIONLY uses coercion and only foreordains and therefore foreknows SOME BUT NOT ALL of our choices and how we will choose. Have I correctly understood what you find as odd in Adam Clarke's thinking or am I completely off base here? Please forgive me if my theology and thinking seems fuzzy or incoherent. I'm still a seeker of the truth and haven't got it all figured out yet. Love to hear from you Mr. Boyd.
Sincerly,
Yankee
Edited by - yankee on 09/17/2002 02:23:19 AM
Edited by - yankee on 09/17/2002 02:27:45 AM | | Back to Top | | |
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Starkman
Registered Member
Date Joined Oct 2001
Total Posts : 1747
| Posted 9/17/2002 2:52 PM (GMT -6) | | Hey Yankee,
You have to remember that from a theological point of view the open view is simply a perspective based on what we believe Scripture reveals about God; that he doesn't know the future in the sense of knowing that part of the future that simply hasn't happened. No one's thwarting God's foreknowledge to get to this theology, it's simply that as you watch God in Scripture, it seems to be that He acts very much like we do with regard to future events; He does't know them unless He's ordainted them or reads our mind, thoughts and heart.
So the idea that God could know everything that's going to happen but chooses not to know it is not something that is revealed about God in Scripture, therefore the open view doesn't hold to that.
Hope that adds something to this!
Starkman
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yankee
Registered Member
Date Joined Jun 2002
Total Posts : 22
| Posted 9/18/2002 10:26 AM (GMT -6) | | Dear Starkman,
Good to hear from you. You said, "So the idea that God could know everything that's going to happen but chooses not to know it is not something that is revealed about God in Scripture, therefore the open view doesn't hold to that.".
The point that you are trying to make is a bit unclear to me. I do want to make sure that you understand that I am NOT trying to suggest that God foreknows some of the choices we will have and how we will choose as a result of his looking off into the future and seeing some but not all of the choices we will have and how we will choose. I affirm that when God foreknows SOME of our future choices and how we will choose that it is because He first foreordained that we face those choices and also foreordained how we will choose. I do NOT believe that God has foreordained every choice we will ever face and how we will choose. I do not believe that God foreknows by simply looking off into the future and simply choosing what He will foreknow. I do believe that God determines the extent of his foreknowledge by foreordination and of course He himself chooses what He will and will not foreordain. If either I or Adam Clarke believes or believed that God foreordains SOME of our choices and how we will choose then by believing this way it would seem that we make it logically necessary to also affirm that God must reserve unto himself the right to use whatever level of PERSUASION or COERCION upon our wills to choose that He deems necessary in order to guarantee that we will choose according to how He foreordained that we choose. Let me say that I am no authority on Adam Clarke and what He taught. It may be that Adam Clarkes' beliefs were vastly different than my own. If you will read my first post on this thread you will see that I am inquiring about Adam Clarke to see if perhaps his version of the open view may resemble my own and to what extent it may or may not resemble it.
Sincerly,
Yankee
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Starkman
Registered Member
Date Joined Oct 2001
Total Posts : 1747
| Posted 9/18/2002 2:08 PM (GMT -6) | | Hey Yankee,
Time constraints! I'll have to be quick here.
Yankee: "I affirm that when God foreknows SOME of our future choices and how we will choose that it is because He first foreordained that we face those choices and also foreordained how we will choose."
Starkman: I agree that God foreordains situations we are to face, but why would you think that God foreordains the choices we're to make? For Him to do so is for Him to have already decided ahead of time what our choice will be (totally contrary to the concept of the open view), and we are made to do something we don't even have the freedom to first consider whether we want to or not, which eliminates freewill.
Now, if we were to look at Jonah, for instance, we would see God boxing Jonah into a situation where Jonah was being more than coeirced to obey God, but not at the expense of Jonah's free will; for at any time, Jonah could have shaken a fist at God and told Him, "I will not." And God, I believe, would have said, "Fine, tonight you die," or something of this nature. He wouldn't have over-ridden his mind, his very capacity of free will. This is how God consistantly operates in Scripture. Yes, there is that Scripture in Psalms, I believe it is, where is says that God changes the direction of the king's mind, but again, it's not "Let's wipe his freewill out of his head so he's forgotten he even has it, and let's make him do what we want." God merely has to put the thought in folks' hearts, and they just go right along with it. God knows they will based on His understanding of their hearts, minds and spirits.
Yankee: "If either I or Adam Clarke believes or believed that God foreordains SOME of our choices and how we will choose then by believing this way it would seem that we make it logically necessary to also affirm that God must reserve unto himself the right to use whatever level of PERSUASION or COERCION upon our wills to choose that He deems necessary in order to guarantee that we will choose according to how He foreordained that we choose."
I again refer to the Jonah incident. In this sitation, Jonah gets some heat put on him to preach to Nineva. However, consider the Israelites, whom surely God would desire they obey Him more than Nineveh. Yet, they disobey to the point of God being ready to kill them before they even get into the Promised land (Ex 32:10). When the mind of a person is made up to not obey God, we don't see Scripture "making" that person obey. It can't be done, not with love being the motive, and freewill being the vehicle. It's simply impossible. Again, though, that God can present circumstances--foreordained situations to get certain results--is part of God's great ability to work with messed up man's heart, mind and spirit. This God does rather well!
Well, gotta go!
Starkman
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