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Lee Merrill
booted
Date Joined Jun 2001
Total Posts : 723
| Posted 5/12/2004 12:06 PM (GMT -6) |   | quote:
Everyone who asks receives, those who seek find, he who knocks gets the door open.
John: If I am not mistaken, the verb tenses in that verse do in fact indicate persistence; i.e., "ask and keep on asking, knock and keep on knocking, seek and keep on seeking."
Yes, and the tenses are almost all present tense, "those who are asking are receiving, those who are seeking are finding," and persistence is also mentioned, "to those who are knocking, the door will be opened." So it's both now, as well as later, here, I think.
quote:
Lee: Grace is what we don't deserve...
John: Why is this non sequitur constantly raised by those who don't believe in libertarian free will? No one who has ever sinned even once can ever deserve anything but hell from God. Choosing what is right is simply our basic moral obligation.
Yes, I agree, and I'm glad you all think this, too. I mentioned this because it seemed that a view was presented that implied that God perhaps bases his answers to prayer on our worthiness.
Will pray for Badge, too, as well...
Blessings,
Lee
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BADGERVOL
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Date Joined Mar 2004
Total Posts : 27
| Posted 5/13/2004 3:08 AM (GMT -6) | | Thank you all for your prayers. I have been doing some praying and soul searching about my heart and my motives and whatever else the Lord puts in my brain to think about. I keep playing around with ways that I can redefine what people say and not read into what they are saying. I've been trying to rethink the way that I view people who knowingly hold a strict theological system and then use words and phrases flippantly that completely contradict their system they are always promoting.
I think I've come up with part of my problem that I need to continue to pray about and just grow up about. I am a competitive person, and I know the rules of logic and consistency and what not. Well, I think I somehow feel as though people who are being inconsistant are "cheating in 'game' of theology." I'm not saying that I walk around all the time viewing theology as a game. In fact, if you knew me you would realize that this is far from the way I come off. But there are rules to discuss and reason with, and when people are breaking those rules it frustrates me.
I continue to pray and think about a way that I can control my inner feelings of frustration and anger. I'm not lashing out at anyone, and honestly people probably could never guess I even get angry inside about inconsistant comments, but it's happening. It's between me and God and I want to try and grow beyond it.
But then, maybe all of my feelings of anger and what God is making me feel and do because it's all a part of his micromanaged plan...? Sorry I couldn't resist. Had to throw in a little humor. :0)
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Similitude
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Date Joined Apr 2004
Total Posts : 4968
| Posted 5/13/2004 3:08 PM (GMT -6) | | quote:
I continue to pray and think about a way that I can control my inner feelings of frustration and anger. I'm not lashing out at anyone, and honestly people probably could never guess I even get angry inside about inconsistant comments, but it's happening. It's between me and God and I want to try and grow beyond it.
BadgerVol,
Remember that we are told to forebear one another. That means all of the "feelings of frustration and anger" are not wrong. Feeling those feelings and YET ACTING in humility IS what constitutes longsuffering, and such forebearance is one of the ways we fellowship with Christ's sufferings. From what you said, you ARE acting in humility, and you are, therefore, innocent.
It can be somewhat depressing to have to suffer intellectual dishonesty from brethren who should be edifying us, but the suffering of those emotions (i.e., frustration and anger) is not something we should seek to eliminate. If we could cease to feel being wronged, we would cease to be moral creatures. Just don't let the "sun go down on your wrath."
Love bears all things. Let us pray for one another that we might have the longSUFFERING of Christ who had to forebear the unbelief of his own disciples:
Mark 9:14 When they came to the disciples, they saw a large crowd around them and experts in the law arguing with them. 9:15 When the whole crowd saw him, they were amazed and ran at once and greeted him. 9:16 He asked them, “What are you arguing about with them?” 9:17 A member of the crowd said to him, “Teacher, I brought you my son, who is possessed by a spirit that makes him mute. 9:18 Whenever it seizes him, it throws him down, and he foams at the mouth, grinds his teeth, and becomes rigid. I asked your disciples to cast it out, but they were not able to do so.” 9:19 He answered them, “You unbelieving generation! How much longer must I be with you? How much longer must I endure you? Bring him to me.”
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BADGERVOL
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Date Joined Mar 2004
Total Posts : 27
| Posted 5/14/2004 3:16 AM (GMT -6) | | | | |
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Lee Merrill
booted
Date Joined Jun 2001
Total Posts : 723
| Posted 5/14/2004 6:56 AM (GMT -6) | | Hi everyone,
quote:
It can be somewhat depressing to have to suffer intellectual dishonesty from brethren who should be edifying us...
I have a suggestion here! I think we all pray as if the future is open because we don't know the future. Thus I don't think this amounts to believing that the future is open or closed, only that as long as we don't know God's will, we can pray for our friend to have a safe arrival in Baltimore. Once they call and tell us that they have arrived, or once the Lord gives us assurance that they will indeed arrive safely, we may leave off our praying, and start giving thanks.
So I don't think this is intellectual dishonesty to pray as if the future is open. From our perspective, it is open, and God sometimes even speaks from our perspective, such as this verse:
Joh 6:6 He asked this only to test him, for he already had in mind what he was going to do.
Or this one:
Jon 4:8 When the sun rose...
So I think a person can be a proper Calvinist, and still pray for a request in the future...
Blessings,
Lee
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Similitude
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Date Joined Apr 2004
Total Posts : 4968
| Posted 5/14/2004 3:24 PM (GMT -6) | | Yo Lee,
quote:
So I don't think this is intellectual dishonesty to pray as if the future is open. From our perspective, it is open, and God sometimes even speaks from our perspective, such as this verse:
Joh 6:6 He asked this only to test him, for he already had in mind what he was going to do.
Or this one:
Jon 4:8 When the sun rose...
So I think a person can be a proper Calvinist, and still pray for a request in the future...
Let me say right off that though we disagree on theology, I find you to be a very polite debater - and more sensitive in your wording than I am. But much of my (and probably other OV'ers) disagreement with you stems from the fact that I believe humans have libertarian free-will (libertarian in the philosophical sense  ). I believed I had free-will before I even became a Christian. I know of atheists who believe they have free-will.
This belief, then, is like our inductive approach to hermeneutics - we pretty much bring it with us to the text of scripture. But because these kinds of beliefs are so fundamental, it would take clear, unambiguous texts to overturn them. This is what I do not see in Scripture.
There are verses which can be interpreted either way. But there are other verses which seem only consistent with libertarian free-will. For example, one of the fruits of the Spirit is self-control. What would that mean if there is no free-will? Also, we are told that "God will not allow us to be tempted above what we are ABLE." That seems to be non-sensical if humans, or at least Christians, have no free-will. Finally, how do we even generate the notion of free-will to debate about it if we didn't experience it within our own moral life to some extent?
So, to recapitulate:
1) I seems intuitive to me that humans have free-will,
2) The verses Calvinists use to refute free-will are equivocal,
3) Some verses seem to require a recognition of human free-will.
Thus, the equivocal verses can never refute my view of free-will. What I would need is an unequivocal verse.
The examples you used above in the quoted text, are also equivocal. They only prove that SOMETIMES God will not be moved from his intentions/plan. But aren't humans the same way? Aren't we open to some things with our kids while rigid on others?
Which brings me to apologize for my sloppy language about prayer above. I didn't mean by my words about the openness of some prayer that the answering of our petitions is about merit. Rather, that God can, in SOME CASES, answer the petitions of Christians because it results in thanksgiving to Him or brings them to a new level of growth, thereby bearing fruit to God. But I would also not rule out that God can be moved to compassion by an earnest petitioner. Ask any parent if they can't identify with that. And for the record, the parable about the woman petitioning the king seems to clearly bear the idea of "persistence," whether it is the POINT of the parable or not.
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Lee Merrill
booted
Date Joined Jun 2001
Total Posts : 723
| Posted 5/15/2004 8:58 AM (GMT -6) | | Hi everyone,
And "Yo Jeff, también!"
quote:
Jeff: But much of my ... disagreement with you stems from the fact that I believe humans have libertarian free-will (libertarian in the philosophical sense ). I believed I had free-will before I even became a Christian.
I agree that we disagree on that. 
quote:
There are verses which can be interpreted either way. But there are other verses which seem only consistent with libertarian free-will. For example, one of the fruits of the Spirit is self-control. What would that mean if there is no free-will?
I think it means we can control ourselves, if we are submitted to God's will. A bit of a paradox:
Ga 5:18 But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under law.
And this is right before he embarks on the discussion of the fruit of the Spirit. So if we are being led by the Spirit, I think that implies we don't have LFW.
quote:
Also, we are told that "God will not allow us to be tempted above what we are ABLE." That seems to be non-sensical if humans, or at least Christians, have no free-will.
I think this means that temptations are not God. They can't force us to do this or that. "The devil made me do it" is not true, the devil can't make a believer sin.
quote:
Finally, how do we even generate the notion of free-will to debate about it if we didn't experience it within our own moral life to some extent?
I happen to think that believers can actually make real choices, within God's will, i.e. they still don't have LFW. But we may experience real choosing, as believers, so in that sense, I agree with your point.
quote:
1) I seems intuitive to me that humans have free-will...
I agree, it seems intuitive to everyone. I think this is an illusion, for most people, like the way teenagers tend to think they are immortal!
"One week-night, when I was sitting in the house of God, I was not thinking much about the preacher's sermon, for I did not believe it. The thought struck me, How did you come to be a Christian? I sought the Lord. But how did you come to seek the Lord? The truth flashed across my mind in a moment-I should not have sought Him unless there had been some previous influence in my mind to make me seek Him. I prayed, thought I, but then I asked myself, How came I to pray? I was induced to pray by reading the Scriptures. How came I to read the Scriptures? I did read them, but what led me to do so? Then, in a moment, I saw that God was at the bottom of it all, and that He was the Author of my faith, and so the whole doctrine of grace opened up to me, and from that doctrine I have not departed to this day, and I desire to make this my constant confession, 'I ascribe my change wholly to God.'" (C.H. Spurgeon)
quote:
2) The verses Calvinists use to refute free-will are equivocal...
Glad to discuss them! I find them convincing.
PR 16:9 The mind of man plans his way, but the Lord directs his steps.
This seems pretty unequivocal, here it is acknowledged that men make plans, but still the Lord directs them. Here is another similar verse:
JER 10:23 I know, O Lord, that a man's way is not in himself; nor is it in a man who walks to direct his steps.
quote:
3) Some verses seem to require a recognition of human free-will...
Glad to discuss some more!
quote:
I didn't mean by my words about the openness of some prayer that the answering of our petitions is about merit.
Sorry I misunderstood.
quote:
Rather, that God can, in SOME CASES, answer the petitions of Christians because it results in thanksgiving to Him or brings them to a new level of growth, thereby bearing fruit to God.
I agree!
quote:
But I would also not rule out that God can be moved to compassion by an earnest petitioner. Ask any parent if they can't identify with that. And for the record, the parable about the woman petitioning the king seems to clearly bear the idea of "persistence," whether it is the POINT of the parable or not.
I also agree that the parable encourages persistence, but I think Jesus' point is that God is not like the unjust judge, that God is eager to act, and will do so swiftly, though it seems like he delays. I think Jesus is saying that the seeming reluctance, and that even the delay, are both appearances, and the reality is different.
quote:
John: It is just as nonsensical to argue that human beings lack free will as it is for someone to argue that he does not exist. It is intuited in every moment of consciousness. The power of choice is a first truth of reason, and it is completely fruitless to argue whether one has it or not. Those who deny it exists exercise their own power of choice all the time.
I don't think they do, though! If they are unbelievers:
2Pe 2:19 They promise them freedom, while they themselves are slaves of depravity- for a man is a slave to whatever has mastered him.
I think Peter is saying that you can choose your master, but you can't choose to be a master, i.e. no LFW:
Ro 6:16 Don’t you know that when you offer yourselves to someone to obey him as slaves, you are slaves to the one whom you obey- whether you are slaves to sin, which leads to death, or to obedience, which leads to righteousness?
Jos 24:15 But if serving the Lord seems undesirable to you, then choose for yourselves this day whom you will serve.
Not "whether you will serve," i.e. we all have to serve someone, no one is "captain of their soul":
1Co 7:22 For he who was a slave when he was called by the Lord is the Lord's freedman; similarly, he who was a free man when he was called is Christ’s slave.
Blessings,
Lee
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PotOnWheel
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Date Joined Jul 2001
Total Posts : 9890
| Posted 5/15/2004 10:46 AM (GMT -6) | | quote:
Originally posted by Lee Merrill
Hi everyone,
And "Yo Jeff, también!"
quote:
Jeff: But much of my ... disagreement with you stems from the fact that I believe humans have libertarian free-will (libertarian in the philosophical sense ). I believed I had free-will before I even became a Christian.
I agree that we disagree on that.
también, I don't think that Calvin would disagree with you. And I think you'd agree with him that your created free will was in a state of derailment for continually varying reasons. Free will defines your created nature. Calvin was big on that God's will is evident in Creation. Reformed continue this emphasis. But sin makes the performance of that freedom be bound. | | Back to Top | | |
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Similitude
Registered Member
Date Joined Apr 2004
Total Posts : 4968
| Posted 5/15/2004 12:19 PM (GMT -6) | | Lee,
If I properly understood your replys to me and POW, you seem to be conceding that there is some LFW. But this would mean that God could not have complete foreknowledge by any means that a human could understand.
So going back to what I said about what we bring to the text: If we can't understand how God could have absolute foreknowledge, and if there is no verse which unequivocally demands that He has such foreknowledge, why would I believe that He does? The scripture says that we should not add to it (or take away). Wouldn't this suggest that we should not read unintuitive ideas into the scripture, either? Human intuition (I know there's disagreement about what is actually intuitive) should be considered trustworthy, seeing's it's designed by God. Even deductive and inductive logic are ultimately rooted in human intuition. And I don't see any reasonable analogy between a human's belief in final causes and a teenager's oblivion to his own mortality.
The verses you posted about outcomes being in God's hand do not necessarily have anything to do with LFW. I can go to work with a plan about what I'm going to do, and then my boss can completely derail that plan. No one would say that disproves the existence of LFW, would they?
Humans can be "derailed" from their plans by a host of means other than lack of LFW - natural disasters, unexpected events, lack of watchfulness, etc.
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PotOnWheel
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Date Joined Jul 2001
Total Posts : 9890
| Posted 5/15/2004 2:40 PM (GMT -6) | | WELL SAID, LEE.
I think its interesting that the framework Calvin himself used was that of God' WOO-ING, and putting on a drama to draw us to him and correct us. That's acting to an audience--that even when in need of dusting off does practice free will in either running further or in responding to God's helpful calling.
Then...
quote:
Originally posted by jefscott
Lee,
If I properly understood your replys to me and POW, you seem to be conceding that there is some LFW. But this would mean that God could not have complete foreknowledge by any means that a human could understand.
Remember, the notion that God is not both in time in actions and outside of time is one novel to the OV. (And its wrong.) Here's something equally critical of the OV and Calvinism -- just to upset everybody 
quote:
...God’s governance or the concrete realization of God’s purpose in time.
...pagan concept of divine immutability was an allergic reaction to time and contingency that needed to find a time-proof foundation of necessity for religious reassurance. Time was the evil Kronos who ate its children.
Pagan philosophical theology sought a predestinied necessity in a time-proof order or an anti-time God. Since everything human is temporal, one gets the unknown God because God is what anything temporal-mortal is not.
Using a Biblical base to modify Greek pagan concepts, divine immutability in Orthodoxy is God’s loyalty to his promise (his Word, his Church) to his (Church designed) creatures. It is the immutability of his commitment through and outside of time. It is the basis of the fact that economia was the telos, and thus, foundation of the creation. Church is the fulfillment of covenant. Covenant is the inner purpose for creation. Creation is the outer staging for the inner purpose. So, the Church, as Body of Christ, is the fruit from which the tree that bore it, the cosmos, was itself borne and born, as St. Diadochus of Gaza puts it. God’s immutability is that he is agape, essentially and contingently, immutably a sharer of Person with Persons, uncreate or create. Time has no nature apart from this agenda, and thus, is nothing in relation to it, and thus, is not an obstacle or issue for or about divine immutability unlike the unregenerate paganism of the insufficiently methologically critical Calvinism.
www.orthodoxinfo.com/inquirers/orth_plato.aspx
Some quotes:
- divine immutability in Orthodoxy is God’s loyalty to his promise == read "COVENANT"
- immutability of his commitment through and outside of time -- read "WOW!" Both through AND outside...
- Covenant is the inner purpose for creation. Creation is the outer staging for the inner purpose. -- Yes!
- God’s immutability is that he is agape, essentially and contingently, immutably a sharer of Person with Persons, uncreate or create. Time has no nature apart from this agenda, and thus, is nothing in relation to it, and thus, is not an obstacle or issue for or about divine immutability...
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PotOnWheel
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Date Joined Jul 2001
Total Posts : 9890
| Posted 5/15/2004 2:44 PM (GMT -6) | | quote:
Originally posted by PotOnWheel
- God’s immutability is that he is agape, essentially and contingently, immutably a sharer of Person with Persons, uncreate or create. Time has no nature apart from this agenda, and thus, is nothing in relation to it, and thus, is not an obstacle or issue for or about divine immutability...
Read this way: (Sorry for the Caps.)
GOD KNOWS MORE THAN ONE WAY TO SKIN A CAT, AND TO "WOO" US TO HIMSELF. AND HE DOESN'T GIVE UP. | | Back to Top | | |
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Lee Merrill
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Date Joined Jun 2001
Total Posts : 723
| Posted 5/15/2004 3:18 PM (GMT -6) | | quote:
If I properly understood your replys to me and POW, you seem to be conceding that there is some LFW. But this would mean that God could not have complete foreknowledge by any means that a human could understand.
I would say, not LFW, but genuine freedom within God's will. I don't think glorified saints can choose to sin. And I also believe that God knows the future, and thus what believers will freely choose. I think God even knows what he will freely choose!
quote:
If we can't understand how God could have absolute foreknowledge, and if there is no verse which unequivocally demands that He has such foreknowledge, why would I believe that He does?
I think there is such a verse, though:
1JN 3:20 For God is greater than our hearts, and he knows everything.
Now you may define "everything" as "every knowable thing," but I think "everything" includes all the future.
quote:
Human intuition (I know there's disagreement about what is actually intuitive) should be considered trustworthy, seeing's it's designed by God. Even deductive and inductive logic are ultimately rooted in human intuition.
Alas, Paul says we can't get there from here:
1CO 3:19-20 For the wisdom of this world is foolishness in God's sight. As it is written: "He catches the wise in their craftiness"; and again, "The Lord knows that the thoughts of the wise are futile."
quote:
And I don't see any reasonable analogy between a human's belief in final causes and a teenager's oblivion to his own mortality.
Just trying to make the point that we can have convincing illusions about reality! No, these are not similar concepts, I agree.
quote:
The verses you posted about outcomes being in God's hand do not necessarily have anything to do with LFW. I can go to work with a plan about what I'm going to do, and then my boss can completely derail that plan.
No, not outcomes, but plans. Regardless of how people plan, God's will directs their steps. I think that's different than just sometimes not succeeding in plans.
quote:
POW: divine immutability in Orthodoxy is God’s loyalty to his promise.
I agree that God will not change his promise, but I think immutability involves more than just that! It involves his nature, too...
Blessings,
Lee
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John Earp
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Date Joined Oct 2002
Total Posts : 1715
| Posted 5/15/2004 3:59 PM (GMT -6) | | quote:
Originally posted by Lee Merrill
quote:
POW: divine immutability in Orthodoxy is God’s loyalty to his promise.
I agree that God will not change his promise, but I think immutability involves more than just that! It involves his nature, too...
Blessings,
Lee
I don't know why people continue to accuse the Open View of denying God's immutable nature, or that God somehow might not fulfill His own promises. It is simply not true. Just because God can change his course of action in response to new developments does not mean God's nature or His covenant promises have changed at all.
The LORD promised Israel many things that contained implied conditions that Israel had to meet in order for them to continue to be fulfilled. Case in point--"I will never leave you nor forsake you." Just a few verses later God says He WILL forsake and abandon them if they do the same to Him. But this implies no more a contradiction to God's immutable NATURE or to his faithfulness than it would to a human being who also made promises that were not unconditional.
God's immutability AND his dynamic responsiveness to human repentance are both brought out in the passage most often quoted to support God's immuntability:
Mal. 3:6 "I the LORD do not change. So you, O descendants of Jacob, are not destroyed. 7 Ever since the time of your forefathers you have turned away from my decrees and have not kept them. Return to me, and I will return to you," says the LORD Almighty.
"But you ask, 'How are we to return?'
"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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PotOnWheel
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| Posted 5/15/2004 5:41 PM (GMT -6) | | Great posts, Lee, and John, and jefscott!!!
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Lee Merrill
booted
Date Joined Jun 2001
Total Posts : 723
| Posted 5/16/2004 8:13 AM (GMT -6) | | Hi John,
quote:
Lee: I agree that God will not change his promise, but I think immutability involves more than just that! It involves his nature, too...
John: I don't know why people continue to accuse the Open View of denying God's immutable nature, or that God somehow might not fulfill His own promises. It is simply not true. Just because God can change his course of action in response to new developments does not mean God's nature or His covenant promises have changed at all.
Glad the OV thinks that! I was actually responding to the Eastern Orthodox view, I had no idea what the OV thinks about this. But onward and upwards!
quote:
The LORD promised Israel many things that contained implied conditions that Israel had to meet in order for them to continue to be fulfilled. Case in point--"I will never leave you nor forsake you." Just a few verses later God says He WILL forsake and abandon them if they do the same to Him. But this implies no more a contradiction to God's immutable NATURE or to his faithfulness than it would to a human being who also made promises that were not unconditional.
The verse I usually understand in this connection is Joshua 1:5, which I think is what is being quoted in Hebrews 13:5, which I think is unconditional, because it's spoken to believers.
The conditional promise like this I take to be in 2 Chr. 15:2, which contains an exhortation to seek God, i.e. it's not spoken solely to believers, which I think is why it's conditional.
quote:
God's immutability AND his dynamic responsiveness to human repentance are both brought out in the passage most often quoted to support God's immuntability:
Mal. 3:6 "I the LORD do not change. So you, O descendants of Jacob, are not destroyed. 7 Ever since the time of your forefathers you have turned away from my decrees and have not kept them. Return to me, and I will return to you," says the LORD Almighty.
"But you ask, 'How are we to return?'
I agree that God changes his response, and not his nature, when people repent. Glad for the agreement!
Blessings,
Lee
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Similitude
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Date Joined Apr 2004
Total Posts : 4968
| Posted 5/16/2004 4:28 PM (GMT -6) | | Lee,
I looked at what Keil and Delitzsch said about Proverbs 16:9 - they didn't see it the way you do. I disagree with their view, but the point is, they are hebrew scholars and not OV'ers. Thus, it's probably not as unequivocal as you think.
Dan 4:17 says that "the Most High ruleth in the kingdom of men and giveth it to whomsoever He will and setteth up over it the basest of men." One could, oblivious to the context, assume that David must have been one of the "basest" of men. Context is everything in scripture. I don't make an absolute out of Dan 4:17 or Proverbs 16:9. Compare Proverbs 16:9 to James:
James 4:13 Go to now ye that say "Today or tomorrow we will go into such a city and continue there a year and buy and sell and get gain...
James 4:15 ... ye ought to say "If the Lord will, we shall live and do this or that."
Here's the idea I see there: Some men actually accomplish their plans because the Lord's will is such that He need NOT intervene providentially to stop them. In other cases, He DOES intervene for His own reasons and frustrates their plans.
Thus, Proverbs 16:9 need not be taken absolutely any more than Dan. 4:17. The calvinist wants to paint the scripture into a false dichotomy - one extreme or the other. Taken as a whole, the scriptures don't read that way. You can prove anything you want from one verse. But that's no way to do exegesis.
quote:
Lee: Just trying to make the point that we can have convincing illusions about reality!
To facilitate discussion, and thereby avoid the frustration that BADGERVOL was talking about, it helps to lay your cards (basic assumptions) on the table so we know what YOU bring to the text. And explain how YOU know that those "cards" aren't illusions, and how YOU know that our "cards" (e.g., belief in LFW) ARE illusions. The one verse at a time arguments can go on forever with little or no progress, precisely because they are interpreted in light of context and those assumptions. I.e., those assumptions play a regulatory role in exegesis, and rightly so.
No man comes to the scriptures as a blank slate. He/she brings at least basic notions about time, space, causality, finality, spirit, matter, etc. If we disagree about these, we will talk past each other and waste our time on a host of different issues. Don't your agree?
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PotOnWheel
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Total Posts : 9890
| Posted 5/16/2004 4:58 PM (GMT -6) | | Lee, try on the fit of what I'm quoting from an Orthodox philosopher (PhD) at Vanderbuilt, who loves Karl Barth.
quote:
Originally posted by Lee Merrill
Hi John,
quote:
Lee: I agree that God will not change his promise, but I think immutability involves more than just that! It involves his nature, too...
John: I don't know why people continue to accuse the Open View of denying God's immutable nature, or that God somehow might not fulfill His own promises. It is simply not true. Just because God can change his course of action in response to new developments does not mean God's nature or His covenant promises have changed at all.
Glad the OV thinks that! I was actually responding to the Eastern Orthodox view...
As per God can chang(ing) his course of action in response to new developments (yet) God's nature (Love) (and) His covenant promises (not hav(ing) changed at all... Don't the Orthodox agree with that TOO!
quote:
http://www.orthodoxinfo.com/inquirers/orth_plato.aspx
The Orthodox understanding is that the pagan concept of divine immutability was an allergic reaction to time and contingency that needed to find a time-proof foundation of necessity for religious reassurance. . . .Pagan philosophical theology sought a predestinied necessity in a time-proof order or an anti-time God. Since everything human is temporal, one gets the unknown God because God is what anything temporal-mortal is not.
Using a Biblical base to modify Greek pagan concepts, divine immutability in Orthodoxy is God’s loyalty to his promise (his Word, his Church) to his (Church designed) creatures. It is the immutability of his commitment through and outside of time. It is the basis of the fact that economia was the telos, and thus, foundation of the creation. Church is the fulfillment of covenant. Covenant is the inner purpose for creation. Creation is the outer staging for the inner purpose. So, the Church, as Body of Christ, is the fruit from which the tree that bore it, the cosmos, was itself borne and born, as St. Diadochus of Gaza puts it. God’s immutability is that he is agape, essentially and contingently, immutably a sharer of Person with Persons, uncreate or create. Time has no nature apart from this agenda, and thus, is nothing in relation to it, and thus, is not an obstacle or issue for or about divine immutability unlike the unregenerate paganism of the insufficiently methologically critical Calvinism.
And I like how he says that "Time ... is not an obstacle or issue(!)" | | Back to Top | | |
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PotOnWheel
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Date Joined Jul 2001
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| Posted 5/16/2004 5:15 PM (GMT -6) | | | | |
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John Earp
Registered Member
Date Joined Oct 2002
Total Posts : 1715
| Posted 5/16/2004 6:24 PM (GMT -6) | | quote:
The LORD promised Israel many things that contained implied conditions that Israel had to meet in order for them to continue to be fulfilled. Case in point--"I will never leave you nor forsake you." Just a few verses later God says He WILL forsake and abandon them if they do the same to Him. But this implies no more a contradiction to God's immutable NATURE or to his faithfulness than it would to a human being who also made promises that were not unconditional.
Lee said: The verse I usually understand in this connection is Joshua 1:5, which I think is what is being quoted in Hebrews 13:5, which I think is unconditional, because it's spoken to believers.
John's response:
Heb. 13:5 Let your conduct be without covetousness; be content with such things as you have. For He Himself has said, "I will never leave you nor forsake you."
Does this wonderful word really mean we can live however we want and God will continue to bless our life, and will never end the relationship on any terms? A look at the original OT context that Hebrews is citing is illuminative:
Deut 31:6 Be strong and of good courage, do not fear nor be afraid of them; for the LORD your God, He is the One who goes with you. He will not leave you nor forsake you."
7Then Moses called Joshua and said to him in the sight of all Israel, "Be strong and of good courage, for you must go with this people to the land which the LORD has sworn to their fathers to give them, and you shall cause them to inherit it. 8And the LORD, He is the One who goes before you. He will be with you, He will not leave you nor forsake you; do not fear nor be dismayed."
But note, just a few verses later in the same chapter, God shows that this promise to never leave nor forsake is in fact conditioned upon their continued obedience (which is precisely the same with regard to the New Covenant as well) :
16And the LORD said to Moses: "Behold, you will rest with your fathers; and this people will rise and play the harlot with the gods of the foreigners of the land, where they go to be among them, and they will forsake Me and break My covenant which I have made with them. 17Then My anger shall be aroused against them in that day, and I will forsake them, and I will hide My face from them, and they shall be devoured. And many evils and troubles shall befall them, so that they will say in that day, "Have not these evils come upon us because our God is not among us?' 18And I will surely hide My face in that day because of all the evil which they have done, in that they have turned to other gods.
So what I gather from this is that so long as we do not forsake Him, He will not forsake us.
2 Tim. 2:12 If we endure, We shall also reign with Him. If we deny Him, He also will deny us.
Your thoughts?
John
"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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Lee Merrill
booted
Date Joined Jun 2001
Total Posts : 723
| Posted 5/17/2004 2:30 PM (GMT -6) | | Hi Jeff,
quote:
I looked at what Keil and Delitzsch said about Proverbs 16:9 - they didn't see it the way you do.
Back home at my computer! Let's see what my commentaries have to say (would still appreciate hearing from K&D!).
"If men devise their way, so as to make God’s glory their end and his will their rule, they may expect that he will direct their steps by his Spirit and grace, so that they shall not miss their way nor come short of their end. But let men devise their worldly affairs ever so politicly, and with ever so great a probability of success, yet God has the ordering of the event, and sometimes directs their steps to that which they least intended." (Matthew Henry)
"The Lord sovereignly determines the outworking of our plans. The Bible in general teaches that only those plans that are approved by him will succeed. ... The point is the contrast between what we actually plan and what actually happens--God determines that." (Expositor's Bible Commentary)
"The final result is the Lord’s doing, over which humans have no real control, and it may not be the 'success' that is yearned for. The poignant confession of Jer 10:23 is appropriate here: 'I know, O Lord, that man’s road is not his [to choose], that man, as he walks, cannot direct his own steps.' Human helplessness before God!" (Word Biblical Commentary)
So I think I'm on track, here.
quote:
James 4:15 ... ye ought to say "If the Lord will, we shall live and do this or that."
Here's the idea I see there: Some men actually accomplish their plans because the Lord's will is such that He need NOT intervene providentially to stop them. In other cases, He DOES intervene for His own reasons and frustrates their plans.
I think Prov. 16:9 says more than that, though, there is a direct mention of men's plans, and no indication that some plans are meant, which certainly could have been said here, if that was the intent. And taking one verse at a time is rather necessary in Proverbs, there isn't a whole lot of context work to do, for the most part. Here is the best I can do on context in Proverbs, another similar verse from there:
PR 21:30 There is no wisdom, no insight, no plan that can succeed against the Lord.
Now this certainly must include all plans, thus God's will is always done, regardless of how men plan or choose.
quote:
If we disagree about these [basic notions], we will talk past each other and waste our time on a host of different issues. Don't your agree?
I do think we should stay focused on Scripture, since that seems to be a base of agreement, that we both accept its authority. Thus I think we can make progress, if we take our questions there.
Blessings,
Lee
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Lee Merrill
booted
Date Joined Jun 2001
Total Posts : 723
| Posted 5/17/2004 2:37 PM (GMT -6) | | Hi PotOnWheel,
quote:
Time has no nature apart from this agenda, and thus, is nothing in relation to it, and thus, is not an obstacle or issue for or about divine immutability unlike the unregenerate paganism of the insufficiently methologically critical Calvinism.
I'm not very sure what he means here, and I don't know if Calvinism coincides with Plato etc., I just want to address whether it's Scriptural. I do think it is...
quote:
the immutability of his commitment
I agree! And of his nature, too, I think you would agree here, too...
Blessings,
Lee
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