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Date Joined Jun 2001
Total Posts : 516
| Posted 6/28/2001 10:10 AM (GMT -6) |   | writerdad
01/13/01 7:43 AM
Ware's interpretation of Genesis 22:12
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Greetings! I am a tentative open theist, in that I am still studying the many facets of it and while I do believe certain aspects of it already (such as God changing in relationship to us )I still have many questions and that is why I was hoping to turn to this dicussion board and throw my questions out to you and hear what you have to say in response to them.
At Present I am readng Bruce Ware's God's Lesser Glory, which is a critique of Open Theism. My question deals with his interpretation of Genesis 22:12. In it he writes:
"...when God observes Abraham bind his son to the altar he has crafted and raise the knife to plunge it into his body, God literally sees and experiences in this moment what he has known from eternity. When the angel of the Lord utters the statement, "for now I know that you fear God," this expresses the idea that "in the experience of this action, I (God) am witnessing Abraham demonstrate dramatically and afresh that he fears me, and I find this both pleasing and acceptable in my sight." Through Abraham's action of faith and fear of God, God sees and enters into the experience of this action of obedience, which action and heart of faith he has previously known fully and perfectly. What this kind of interpretation offers is a way to understand the text as communicating a present and experiental reality that is true of God at the moment of Abraham's act of faith , while it also safeguards what scripture elsewhere demands, the previous full and perfect knowledge God had of Abraham's fear of him."
My question deals with God entering into the "experience of the act of obedience." Ware's point seems to be that, although God knows what we will do from all eternity, he enters into the experience we are going through in order that he may be in relationship with us and experience said relationship with us. Yet Ware is also quick to point out that God knew of this from all eternity, which brings up this point: if this act of obedience never happened before (and we can assume that, given that most Christians do not believe in reincarnation), it would seem that this act of Abraham is a unique act that Abraham did at one time and at no other. And while God may have perfect knowledge of the act and what happened or would happen in the act, he could not have had perfect knowledge of the experience of the act because the act did not happen until a certain point in time (and while God may be timeless, and we can grant that, for the sake of argument, though I am not sure I totally believe that, we are not, so it would have had to happen at a certain point in time for us and therefore God could have only experienced it at that point in time when it happened, for Ware adknowledges elsewhere that God does, indeed, enter time to relate to us), and, as such, would not God be learning something new through experiencing the act itself. Every act would seem, to me, unique, in and of itself and, when God experiences the act of another, no matter how much he knows of that act, it would seem that each experience is new in time and something is learned from it. So it seems Ware's view that God has perfect knowledge of everything is defeated because of the relationships God would have to experience.
A couple of other brief points related to the subject: as Philip Yancey points out in his book, "The Jesus I Never Knew," in the incarnation God learned, for before the incarnation God did not have a body, so he could not have known what it was like to have a body. Also scripture says Jesus was perfected through suffering. God could not have known what suffering was like before that.
Finally, it would seem that knowing what an egg tastes like and experiencing the taste of an egg anew each morning are two different things. Each experience of eating the egg brings some new knowledge of an egg's taste. And considering that God has relationships with an incredible amount of creatures, it would seem that each experience would generate something new and incredible for him. Anyway, I am interested in your responses. I am new, so if this subject has been brought up before, a thousand pardons...Harold
Posted Originally From: Christus Victor Ministries
ModesofThought
02/11/01 11:21 PM
RE: Ware's interpretation of Genesis 22:12
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Precisely right!!
Kierkegaard offers a parable which illustrates your point nicely:
"Let us imagine a pilot (sailor), and assume that he had passed every examination with distinction, but that he had not as yet been at sea. Imgine him in a storm; he knows everything he ought to do, but he has not known before how terror grips the seafarer when the stars are lost in the blackness of night; he has not known the sense of importance that comes when the pilot sees the wheel in his hand become a plaything for the waves; he has not known how the blood rushes to the head when one tries to make calculations at such a moment; in short, he has no conception of the change that takes place in the knower when he has to apply his knowledge."
Now this is clear for us as humans, but why think this would be different for God as God enters into experiences God has not yet experienced? The infinite qualitative shift of God's experience as infinite to that of a finite person in Christ must be beyond profound!
Great insights here Harold, its too bad this post got overlooked for so long!
I have found that Ware is not generally very persuasive. If one wants to read better arguments from the opposition history has a rich supply in Calvin and Luther themselves. Of course they don't address openess by name but their arguments against the freedom of the will are much better that what has generally emerged in recent evangelical scholarship. In my opinion, there should be a rule that a new book should not be printed on a topic unless it is a worthy contribution to the argument as it moves forward. So far, Ware and Geisler in particular have failed this test. They would have done better to simply quote extensively from the reformers' debates nearly 500 years ago.
Posted Originally From: Christus Victor Ministries
writerdad
02/12/01 11:29 AM
RE: RE: Ware's interpretation of Genesis 22:12
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Modes: I agree wholeheartedly with you. It is better to go back and read the earily reformers and flex your muscles against them than to read those two books. Plus, the reformers (by and large) had much more graciousness towards those they disagreed with. Geisler, in particular, disappointed me. He could not, it seems, seperate process theology in some areas of the book from the open view. Given that he had written many excellant books dealing with the Christian faith, I expected more from him. With Ware, he simply makes too many assumptions that are simply not valid and he is like many of the reformed. They are much at attacking than defending. As I read him I easily could compile many counterarguments to him without even thinking about it. Ware paints a rosy portrait of the reformed view without adknowledging that there are easily as many philisophical problems with it.
When one deals with how God answers prayer, why, and God's dealings with suffering, one should at the outset adknowledge that there is much we do not know. Yet Ware never does this. He seems to imply that if we would all simply accept reformed theology the church would be so much better off. As you said I found unpersuasive. I did want to mention that I find it funny that they put people like Piper and Carson on the book as endorsements. Its like, "all you reformed believers out there can read this!" Being endorsed by those who already believe you does nothing to promote the book...hey, thanks for answering. I had given up. John 17:3 Harold
Posted Originally From: Christus Victor Ministries
unworthy
02/12/01 1:20 PM
RE: Ware's interpretation of Genesis 22:12
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writerdad,
True enough.
As you read Ware's explanation, notice he wishes to interpret "for now I know..." as "for now I proclaim....". As you keenly perceive Ware wishes to turn it to entering into the experience what He already knew would happen. Now this at first seems to rescue the event for the traditional view of omniscience. But in the process, He actually sacrifices traditional impassibility and omniscience. For as you point out, he is recognizing the difference between intellectual assent, and experience. At the very least God changes between having experienced something, and having not experienced it.
Like others, Ware attempts to turn the focus of the statement from the stated experience of God ("for NOW I know...") to merely a proclamation of Abraham's experience. This is also the typical argument engaged regarding God changing His mind at Moses' appeal. The traditionalist argues that while it says "God changed His mind," really Moses changed his own mind/position in relation to God. Thus, they argue, it merely appeared to Moses that God changed His mind.
It's a neat little attempt at scripture twisting. But it doesn't hold up under scrutiny.
Sincerely,
Unworthy
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edcaina
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Date Joined Jan 2002
Total Posts : 12
| Posted 7/20/2004 1:45 PM (GMT -6) | | Related to the issue of Genesis 22:12, somebody asked: why does it necessarily follow that only when Abe lifted that knife did God "know" that Abe has a perfect faith already?
My reply was: Let me give my understanding of it. God could have known Abe’s "perfect" fear of God prior to the lifting up of the knife but God decided to stop Abe at the point where Abe lifted up the knife for some purposes which he only knows (perhaps to make the future record of the story more remarkable). I would not be dogmatic to say that the ONLY time God knew it was when Abe liftesd up the knife. He could have known it prior to the lifting up of the knife but I also believe that it COULD NOT BE EARLIER than Gen. 22:1 when God decided to "test" Abe. And I don’t believe that God knew Abe’s "perfect" fear of God at least million of years before the testing as EDF would say he did.
Now, does my take on God knowing Abe's faith prior to the lifting up of the dagger deviates from OV's main thesis that God knows the future as partly settled and partly open?
Or should an OV proponent be charged has having a "different" kind of OV just because he interprets the Genesis 22 acount the way i do?
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PotOnWheel
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| Posted 7/20/2004 2:18 PM (GMT -6) | | | | |
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PotOnWheel
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Date Joined Jul 2001
Total Posts : 9890
| Posted 7/20/2004 2:36 PM (GMT -6) | | quote:
Originally posted by edcaina
Related to the issue of Genesis 22:12, somebody asked: why does it necessarily follow that only when Abe lifted that knife did God "know" that Abe has a perfect faith already?
My reply was: Let me give my understanding of it. God could have known Abe’s "perfect" fear of God prior to the lifting up of the knife but God decided to stop Abe at the point where Abe lifted up the knife for some purposes which he only knows (perhaps to make the future record of the story more remarkable). I would not be dogmatic to say that the ONLY time God knew it was when Abe liftesd up the knife. He could have known it prior to the lifting up of the knife but I also believe that it COULD NOT BE EARLIER than Gen. 22:1 when God decided to "test" Abe. And I don’t believe that God knew Abe’s "perfect" fear of God at least million of years before the testing as EDF would say he did.
Now, does my take on God knowing Abe's faith prior to the lifting up of the dagger deviates from OV's main thesis that God knows the future as partly settled and partly open?
Or should an OV proponent be charged has having a "different" kind of OV just because he interprets the Genesis 22 acount the way i do?
OK. Isn't the question that person was asking a matter of their trying to get a whole by merely adding up details. (What I tend to think of as vestiges of medieval nominalism that floats around a lot) The whole should help us interpret the details.
Two things come to mind, that I think have to be addressed before any "puzzle" is attempted.
First, the anthropological fact that for Abram belief and action go together almost at the atomic level. (OK, I'm exagerating!) Psychologists talk about "cognitive dissonance: "the discomfort felt at a discrepancy between what you already know or believe, and new information or interpretation." Abraham had to ACT inorder for an idea to become faith. Our Anglo-Saxon word "be-life" -- to live in accordance to -- shows us this too. Abram could not just pull a Gnostic thinking exercise. Thought had to take on flesh. The unity of psycho and soma had to happen.
Second, isn't it an abstraction to think that the "legal" issue of what Abraham had done matters more than the relationship that he developed with God. It should be the relationship that we focus on. Doing this mattered in the process of Abram becoming Abraham. God didn't change, but Abram did. Faith is a relationship with God. A meeting and a joining. "Abraham saw" the day of Christ. By faith he touched righteousness. What happened in Abram's heart mattered, and along with Romans 5 and James 1 we see that the struggle was worth it!!!
IMHO, it only fits a legalistic view of salvation to think that what "would have" happened matters at all.
My two cents. | | Back to Top | | |
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Mordecai
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Date Joined Jul 2004
Total Posts : 19
| Posted 7/20/2004 6:43 PM (GMT -6) | | Warmest Christian greetings to all! Neophyte here, and this marks my first post in this forum.
quote:
Originally posted by edcaina
Related to the issue of Genesis 22:12, somebody asked: why does it necessarily follow that only when Abe lifted that knife did God "know" that Abe has a perfect faith already?
My reply was: Let me give my understanding of it. God could have known Abe’s "perfect" fear of God prior to the lifting up of the knife but God decided to stop Abe at the point where Abe lifted up the knife for some purposes which he only knows (perhaps to make the future record of the story more remarkable). I would not be dogmatic to say that the ONLY time God knew it was when Abe liftesd up the knife. He could have known it prior to the lifting up of the knife but I also believe that it COULD NOT BE EARLIER than Gen. 22:1 when God decided to "test" Abe. And I don’t believe that God knew Abe’s "perfect" fear of God at least million of years before the testing as EDF would say he did.
Now, does my take on God knowing Abe's faith prior to the lifting up of the dagger deviates from OV's main thesis that God knows the future as partly settled and partly open?
Or should an OV proponent be charged has having a "different" kind of OV just because he interprets the Genesis 22 acount the way i do?
Actually, I'm the SOMEBODY who asked our Bro. EdCaina. With no definite stance on my own at the moment, I'm studying OVT and CT views. My understanding is that Gen 22:12 is one of the "proof text" for OVT. God saying "NOW I know" (i.e. Abe's fear of God) in this verse supposedly proves that the future is open to God since it was only "now" that God "knew". But then the CT argument is that God had ample resources to already "know" before the "now", such as the long faithful history of Abraham's life and the fact that God knows man's heart. So if God had such resources and He only "knew" in Gen 22:12, then God's knowledge of the past (which OVTs affirm as exhaustively known to God) is actually compromised in the OVT stance.
I believe Bro. EdCaina sees this problem, and so he reasons that God could've "known" prior to Gen. 22:12 per his stated reasons above. But then, at least for Bro. EC, he cannot use Gen. 22:12 as a "proof text" for his OVT position. As such, his OVTism is of a different "brand" than those who would hold to Gen. 22:12 as a "proof text" and affirm that God only "knew" then in Gen. 22:12.
Please comment on these arguments. Thank you and God's abundant blessings to you all. | | Back to Top | | |
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Tom
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Date Joined Jul 2001
Total Posts : 10353
| Posted 7/20/2004 6:54 PM (GMT -6) | | Hi Mordecai! Welcome to the site. Hope you have a great time and are blessed. I do have a few thoughts, but...it's midnight and the laundry needs to be put in the dryer. So maybe tomorrow!
Tom  | | Back to Top | | |
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Bobber
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Date Joined Jun 2004
Total Posts : 199
| Posted 7/20/2004 8:56 PM (GMT -6) | | Hello Everyone 
quote:
...when God observes Abraham bind his son to the altar he has crafted and raise the knife to plunge it into his body, God literally sees and experiences in this moment what he has known from eternity. When the angel of the Lord utters the statement, "for now I know that you fear God,"
Im sure this fellow is sincere person but I just can’t believe for the life of me why massive amounts of people have allowed the theologians to get away with this type of reasoning just because a man or men write books? One would say God knew from all eternity the choices another had made. How did he know it? Because he saw it in other words he saw the choice that we made. But then when the time comes God literally sees and experiences the choices? We’re to believe that he didn’t literally see it before? In what sense then did he know it before?
You couldn’t say God knew it would happen unless you believe God controls everything with no freedom of will. Well here’s my take on the issue. There are two time loops if I might put it that way. It could be argued there was a time that God didn’t know these things. Thus we have the accounts written in scripture that God didn’t know. If he did know I don’t think he would have said Now I know Abraham loves me. When Abraham showed to God his devotion a revelation of the event connected back to the past which some might call time travel. The revelation of it goes back to the past to the point that God does indeed see the choices we have be made and now he knows about them .
So why the second time around does God leave the time line the same and have the same things occur? Because in the realm of reality that’s exactly what did occur. God wants to relate to man from the standpoint of time [although there could a few places he doesn't because of his soverign will] and yet there is another vantage point and that is from the realm of eternity Don’t take my word for it. Study the internet and see what many men of science believe would take place one step above the speed of light. Retrograde time. So in reading the scriptures we see God responding two ways throughout the scrituptues, from the standpoint of time [physical time] but also from the standpoint of eternity.
God does know all the future he's the Alpha/Omega, Beginning And The End, but relating to man he does respond many times in a physical time type of way. Now someone might
challenge this by stating God then was lying when he said he didn't know? No. For that event did take place at one point just that way in the realm of time I would suggest we’ve got to get out of the box and appreciate that God has higher dimensional abilities then ourselves. Remember that scripture states Jesus came down from ABOVE. [which must mean a universe of a higher dimensional type of order] I would suggest he's not bound by the way we view time folks…I think we need to t hink of God as higher. 
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Sisters of Cain
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Date Joined Mar 2004
Total Posts : 431
| Posted 7/21/2004 2:57 AM (GMT -6) | | quote:
Originally posted by edcaina
Now, does my take on God knowing Abe's faith prior to the lifting up of the dagger deviates from OV's main thesis that God knows the future as partly settled and partly open?
No it doesn't deviate.
Many people don't really know how they're going to react in a certain situation until they actually do it. I think God knew Abraham's faith up to a point, but an untested faith is mostly potential, I think. It takes some acting in faith to definitively know the quality of your faith.
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edcaina
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Total Posts : 12
| Posted 7/21/2004 5:11 AM (GMT -6) | | quote:
Originally posted by Mordecai
I believe Bro. EdCaina sees this problem, and so he reasons that God could've "known" prior to Gen. 22:12 per his stated reasons above. But then, at least for Bro. EC, he cannot use Gen. 22:12 as a "proof text" for his OVT position. As such, his OVTism is of a different "brand" than those who would hold to Gen. 22:12 as a "proof text" and affirm that God only "knew" then in Gen. 22:12.
Hi Mordecai, Good to see you here, bro.
No, I dont see it that way. I take Gen. 22:12 the way I take it because it is really possible that God had seen Abe's faith the moment he left his house with Isaac and his servant (not prior to that much less from eternity past). It is also possible that Abe's heart is already characterized by a genuine fear of God prior to the lifting up of the dagger and not on that moment only. But still, I insist that God, before the testing (in Gen. 22:1), was not certain whether Abe would obey or not. And the moment Abe made his move to go to Moriah, that initial move might already have proven to God that Abe really fears God. It is also possible that God only decided to stop Abe and told him, "now I know that you fear God..." at the exact moment when Abe lifted the dagger so that the story of Abe and Isaac will have a remarkable impact to future generations.
The thing is we cannot limit the "now I know..." ONLY to that specific moment when Abe lifted the dagger to kill Isaac. Yes, it does say, "now". But God can say "now" instaed of saying, "Three days ago I knew you fear God"
And the thing is whether God saw Abe's fear of God at the moment he lifted the dagger or at the moment Abe left his house for Moriah three days before, Open Theists do not believe that God was already certain that Abe would obey God prior to the giving of the test in Gen. 22:1.
Now, must we limit that statement "now I know that you fear God" to that specific moment only when Abe lifted up the dagger or could we also grant that God said "now" and yet he saw Abe's fear of God earlier than that moment but choose to utter those words "Now I know" only when Abe raised the dagger? If we could, in what way I could not use Gen. 22:12 in supporting the OV? But if we could not grant that possibility, tell me why we couldn't grant that?
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Mordecai
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Total Posts : 19
| Posted 7/22/2004 6:55 PM (GMT -6) | | Good to see you here too Bro. EdCaina,
quote:
Now, must we limit that statement "now I know that you fear God" to that specific moment only when Abe lifted up the dagger or could we also grant that God said "now" and yet he saw Abe's fear of God earlier than that moment but choose to utter those words "Now I know" only when Abe raised the dagger? If we could, in what way I could not use Gen. 22:12 in supporting the OV? But if we could not grant that possibility, tell me why we couldn't grant that?
Ok, I understand now. You are saying whether “now I know” means literally “now” or semi-literally “3 days ago”, you can still use Gen 22:12 as “proof text” because it still supports the OVT contention that God only “now” learned of Abe's fear, hence the future is open to God. Finally gotcha brother, pardon me for being too slow to comprehend.
Well, thanx for tackling these OVT issues with me brother. Right now, this OVT and CT studies I've been doing has boiled down to one watershed issue for me--God's relation to time. I've now realized that if God is timeless (CT view) then there is no conflict between His absolute Omniscience and man's free will, but if God is temporal (OVT view) then, yes, there is conflict between those. Right now I'm of the opinion that God is timeless in His eternity. I wish you could join us in the other board where I'm defending that position, your input would be invaluable.
Best regards, and go with God brother! | | Back to Top | | |
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feelinahole
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Total Posts : 754
| Posted 7/22/2004 9:08 PM (GMT -6) | | | | |
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PotOnWheel
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Date Joined Jul 2001
Total Posts : 9890
| Posted 7/23/2004 3:56 AM (GMT -6) | | The Psalmist says: "He knows our frame and remembers that we are dust."
This is written before the incarnation. God does not have to walk in our moccasin's to know what it is for us to do so.
That parallels what some are trying to handle.
Lets not get a conflated view of God. | | Back to Top | | |
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edcaina
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Date Joined Jan 2002
Total Posts : 12
| Posted 7/24/2004 12:22 AM (GMT -6) | | quote:
Originally posted by Mordecai
Good to see you here too Bro. EdCaina,
I wish you could join us in the other board where I'm defending that position, your input would be invaluable.
Best regards, and go with God brother!
Thanks, bro., but I dont have any more plans of coming back to that forum. If you wish you could post you ideas here: http://www.christusvictorministries.org/gbfront/forum/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=2699&whichpage=1&SearchTerms=+Time
In that thread they discussed the "I AM". Check this out also:
http://www.christusvictorministries.org/gbfront/forum/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=2627&whichpage=1&SearchTerms=+Time
But in your reply to JWesley you said something I am not comfortable with. You said:
quote:
Yes it did happen that way just like the Bible told us. But that does not mean it happened that way from God's perspective. You need to differentiate our experience and our perceptions from God’s experience and God’s perception of the same events, for they are not the same since God is timeless and we are temporal. http://thebereans.net/forum/index.php?board=4;action=display;threadid=835;start=135
How did you know that it did not happen that way in God's perspective? Have you experienced how God experiences realities so that you can say, "Yes it did happen that way just like the Bible told us. But that does not mean it happened that way from God's perspective"?
I think your assumption that the creation account did not exactly happen the way the Bible reported it to us as far as God's own perspective is concerned implicates two things (1) it betrays the belief in the literal account of creation, and (2) the reality we see is not the reality that God sees. In that case, there are two versions of reality of Gods' creation in Gen. 1-2: (a) The reality of creation that the Bible reported to us and (b) the reality of creation in God's perspective which is NOT EXACTLY what the Bible reported to us in Gen. 1-2.
Questions:
(1) which reality of the creation account then is true, the reality in God's perspective or the reality that Gen. 1-2 reports?
(2) what source of authority would tell us that that the creation account as reported to us by the Word of God in Genesis 1-2 IS NOT exactly the way it had been in God's perspective?
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Mordecai
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Date Joined Jul 2004
Total Posts : 19
| Posted 7/26/2004 11:02 PM (GMT -6) | | Thanx for those links! Very interesting reading.
As for your questions, I'd love to share my thoughts on them but this doesn't seem to be the appropriate thread to respond in.
Tell you what I'll just respond in the old forum and notify you when I've done so.
P.S.
How does one get post notification from this forum? Haven't been receiving one from this particular thread. | | Back to Top | | |
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