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BADGERVOL
Registered Member
Date Joined Mar 2004
Total Posts : 27
| Posted 5/30/2004 5:44 PM (GMT -6) |   | Again, I am not a full blown Open Theist yet, but at this point it makes more sense to me. Anyway, here is something I am thinking about and wanted some thoughts on.
When I begin to discuss this whole debate (OV vs. Calvinism primarily) I find it interesting that there are so many logical inconsistencies in the Calvinistic position that are allowed to be glossed over with the phrase, "well that is just a divine mystery." Being a reasonable person who is trying to come up with a theory that best explains the whole of scripture, this whole "mystery card" as I like to call it just doesn't hold a lot of water with me and seems to come across as very "convenient." If there is any parts of the OV that become hard to explain or appear to be contradictory, they jump all over the view and brand this a reason why it should not be held. So it seems no one else is allowed this ever resourceful "mystery card."
So what I am looking for is simply this. An example in scripture revolving around a completely different issue where one could pit two very contradictory verses against each other forming a very strange teaching in the Bible that violates the Law of Non-Contradiction so that I can bust out a theoretical "mystery card" and demonstrate how foolish this is to allow ourselves to pull this card in a debate.
So, OV experts of the Bible, (if you can make sense out of my wordy post) help me find some example of some theological debate that has verses that would elaborate this point. | | Back to Top | | |
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God_Is_Truth
Registered Member
Date Joined Nov 2003
Total Posts : 33
| Posted 5/30/2004 6:50 PM (GMT -6) | | | | |
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BemaBound
Registered Member
Date Joined Apr 2004
Total Posts : 50
| Posted 5/31/2004 5:51 AM (GMT -6) | | I agree. There are no contradictions in the Scripture. Yet, there are mysteries - such as God never having a beginning - always existing. We, who have had a beginning, cannot fathom this - yet it's true nevertheless. From what you're saying, the people with whom you're discussing the OV are pulling this "mystery card" out in order to avoid a good discussion or debate.
The reason they may be doing this, and the reaons I've seen so much opposition to this OV is due to a fear... that if God doesn't know every detail of the future, every thought and choice and action that we will do today, and tomorrow and the next day, then He is not in control of the universe. Some people start from the presupposition, "God MUST know all things including all future things else He is not God (not just future events but all our future choices). This person won't be open to even consider any other thought, for it will threaten his idea about God. The Open View says that God is sovereign, knows all the past, all the present (including the present thoughts and choices of our hearts), and all of the future that He SAYS HE KNOWS, and yet, He opens Himself up to some future things that He doesn't need to know (and still remain Sovereign God over the universe).*
That's why so many evolutionists and atheists are not open to consider God, The Creator of all things. They start from the presupposition, "There must not be a God, a Creator; and if there is a God, I don't want to find out because that would mean I am HIS creation, and therefore, I would be subservient to Him - and I will not bow my knee to anyone." How open is that person going to be to have a reasonable discussion about the existence of God?
Michael
* God is glorified by being open to our choices - and the pains and pleasures those choices bring Him. What glory is there in pre-programming and micro-managing the will of man so that everything will happen exactly as He planned it? Yet, how else could God absolutely guarantee the outcome of our future choices unless He did that kind of "pre-programming" and/or "micro-managing?" It sounds more like a God that we're making in our own image. He can handle the disappointments from our poor choices without needing to protect Himself by knowing what they are beforehand. God is not "anal" like us, nor is He a "control freak" like us. One cannot separate God knowing my choices beforehand from God guaranteeing that they WILL happen (through both pre-programming and micro-managing). And that would reduce us to glorified robots.
Michael | | Back to Top | | |
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BADGERVOL
Registered Member
Date Joined Mar 2004
Total Posts : 27
| Posted 6/1/2004 2:58 AM (GMT -6) | | No, no, I'm not saying show me another place where the Bible contradicts. My post was confusing I can tell. Let me just word it this way...how would you deal with a person in any debate or this one in particular, who pulls the "well that is just a mystery that we have to accept" any time they have what appears to be a contradiction in their system of understanding scripture or anything else.
What I was hoping for was another supposed contradiction in another form system of Christian theology (like a non-mainstream belief or something) which if we let them use the "mystery card" they could stand up and declare that their view is completely logical and coherent with the Bible when it can't be a system we allow to exist.
Here's one I was thinking of...
The KKK uses scripture and what not on their website to propose the idea that a good Christian isn't against segregation and maybe even slavery. Well that view doesn't sit well with main stream Christianity...correct? What if we allowed them to hold this view by saying, "Well, I know the Bible says there is supposed to be no distinction between people, but we we have to understand that Christ said a slave is supposed to be a good slave too. We'll choose to let the latter verse interpret the earlier, and conviently brand this debate a "mystery" that we can't understand, but must accept. Yes it looks like God both condones slavery and doesn't condone slavery, but that is just a mystery.
See the slippery slope it can possibly create and how absurd it is to allow "mystery cards" in debates? This is what I am looking for. Examples like this (or a lot better :) ). | | Back to Top | | |
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Tom
Registered Member
Date Joined Jul 2001
Total Posts : 10353
| Posted 6/1/2004 5:55 AM (GMT -6) | | You make a valid point Badge. Here’s a bit from a piece I wrote a couple years ago. I think it still applies:
The appeal to antinomy
Some today encourage us simply to affirm, without attempting to resolve, the contradiction that God eternally foreknows as certain (or as some would argue, as unconditionally determined) all that comes to pass but that humans are nevertheless free and morally responsible for what they do. Some actually affirm that Calvinism and Arminianism are essentially both true and we should affirm the claims of both. God eternally knows all that shall come to pass but also genuinely regrets, changes his mind, and experiences unfulfilled expectations. Open theists are sometimes accused of having sold out to rationalism, of having reduced God to the categories of human logic, and of being unwilling to look into the mirror and embrace their own limitations.
The doctrine of the Trinity is often appealed to as an example of a case in which we already affirm a self-contradictory belief. On this view, claiming that Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are distinct persons who nevertheless eternally possess one undivided nature thus constituting one God is thought to be self-contradictory; that is, the Trinity constitutes an antinomy. It’s then argued that since we affirm antinomy in the doctrine of the Trinity, why insist that antinomy be avoided with regard to divine sovereignty and human freedom? Let’s admit both are true: God eternally knows as certain all history, human choices included, and we are also free and morally responsible for our actions. It is admitted that this presents us with a contradiction, but it makes perfect sense to God. There it is. We must deal with it.
Whether or not we should affirm self-contradictory beliefs is a crucial question. I submit that mystery is one thing and self-contradiction is quite another, and that the latter has no place in Christian theology. Scripture nowhere encourages us to affirm or bow our knee to self-contradictory claims. I can think of several reasons why dismissing with logical coherence is a fatal step to take. First, the logically impossible cannot be meaningfully embraced by us or attributed to God. God cannot make a square circle or a married bachelor, and we do not make God greater or more glorious by insisting that he can perform such actions. More importantly, we cannot meaningfully relate to such claims. They have no meaning for us. Thus, there is no cash value to be had, existentially speaking, in embracing such claims. The doctrines of the Trinity and the Incarnation, for example, are meaningful doctrines. Though they are indeed mysterious, they are not self-contradictory. They are not the logical equivalent of square circles or married bachelors. In order for the Trinity to constitute an antinomy of this sort, what would need to be asserted is belief in “one God and three Gods.” Such a belief would then provide an antinomy that logically parallels the Calvinist’s claim that “God unconditionally determines our choices and we are justly held responsible for them” and the Arminian claim that “God eternally foreknows as certain the free choices we will make.” The doctrine of the Trinity, however, does not claim this and thus does not provide us with an example of the sort of thing some urge us to affirm with respect to God’s sovereignty and human freedom.
Secondly, if we seek to speak meaningfully of God and to meaningfully articulate God’s self-revelation, logical coherence must be maintained. The alternative is agnosticism. If we admit logically self-contradictory claims, then we abandon one of the necessary criteria of meaning. We also would have little basis upon which to combat false teachings (like open theism!) on the basis that they don’t make sense.(2)
Therefore, thirdly, God’s transcendence may certainly mean he is more than the openness passages reveal him to be, but if we are to maintain that Scripture “reveals” God to us it must also be that God is not less than or contrary to what these passages reveal him to be. Open theists don’t claim to possess an exhaustive understanding of the Triune nature of God or the incarnation. God is certainly beyond our comprehension. What is claimed is only that what God has chosen to reveal to us cannot meaningfully be embraced or expressed by us in self-contradictory terms.
Lastly, open theists don’t doubt that life is full of mystery or that the complexities of our world are often incomprehensible to us. Often times we are left with no explanation for our circumstances and simply have to trust God. The open view is not an attempt to remove such mystery from life or a refusal to embrace our limitations. It is rather an attempt to seek to define and live with that mystery more biblically.
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(1) See David Basinger’s challenge to the appeal to antinomy in “Biblical Paradox: Does Revelation Challenge Logic?” JETS 30/2 (1987) pp. 206-222, John Sanders, The God Who Risks (Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press, 1998), pp. 34-38, and Vincent Brummer, Speaking of a Personal God (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992), pp. 1-32. Some suggest that science provides examples of antinomy, or self-contradictory claims. J. I. Packer, for example, Evangelism and the Sovereignty of God (Downers Grove: InterVarsity, 1961), pp. 20, 24, suggests that the nature of light, being both particle and wave, is a clear example of such antinomy. Reason suggests that we ought to reject either that light is wave or particle, but the evidence constrains us to affirm two incompatible truths and live with the tension. Packer suggests that we should then have no qualms about affirming mutually incompatible truths in Scripture.
Is Packer correct? Does the nature of light provide us with a scientific equivalent of a square circle or a married bachelor? Not everyone agrees. David Basinger, “Biblical Paradox,” writes, “…this [Packer’s] analogy is dubious. It is certainly true that in science (and other areas) we sometimes come to the point where the evidence appears to equally support two incompatible theories or statements. In the nature of light controversy, for example, physicists have stated that light sometimes displays wave-like properties and sometimes displays particle-like properties—that is, they have stated that some properties of light are best explained by a wave hypothesis while other properties of light are best explained by a particle hypothesis. And it is certainly true that in such cases we ought not arbitrarily reject one in favor of the other just to resolve the tension. Moreover, for instrumental reasons it may well be justifiable for scientists to assume as a working hypothesis in specific contexts that one or both are true. But theoretical scientists have never made the claim, as the theologians of paradox seem to with respect to Biblical truths, that two incompatible propositions can in fact be simultaneously true. Physicists, for example, have never claimed that light is in fact simultaneously both wholly particle and wholly wave, where ‘wave’ and ‘particle’ are defined in such a way that the terms are contradictory. The claim of the scientist, rather, is only that there is at times no good basis for considering either of two seemingly incompatible propositions false. And this is a much different, weaker claim than its alleged theological counterpart (given our current interpretation). For only the claim that two incompatible propositions are in fact simultaneously true threatens the meaning of the concepts involved.” See also A. Baez, The New College Physics (San Francisco: W. H. Freeman, 1967), pp. 233-241, and T. Kuhn, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, 2d ed (Chicago: University of Chicago, 1970), who with other scientists believes that “light is a self-consistent entity different from both waves and particles,” p. 114. What is interesting is that those who insist we affirm against reason the evidence of science that light is both wave and particle are themselves unwilling to accept against their reason the evidence of science (e.g., the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle) that reality is both partly deterministic and partly indeterministic, partly determined by existing factors and partly open to genuine novelty and true becoming.
(2) It is difficult to understand why those who claim we should not attempt to resolve the self-contradiction present in the beliefs that a) God eternally and unconditionally predetermines all things and also justly holds us responsible for our choices (i.e., Calvinism) or that b) God eternally foreknows our free choices (i.e., classic Arminianism), object to the open view on the basis that in their view it makes self-contradictory claims! It is difficult to avoid concluding that “antinomy” (so-called “mystery” by theologians of antinomy) often becomes a dumping ground for parts of a system of belief which simply don’t work. One may wonder, assuming that God intends us to understand what he means to communicate, and assuming that God is the consummate communicator (rather than an inept one), why self-contradictory beliefs are ever made a test of fellowship or credentials. Surely the basis of fellowship and cooperative ministry ought to be what can be affirmed with reason and understanding about God, not what cannot be meaningfully affirmed about him. To make the affirmation of admittedly self-contradictory truth claims a test of one’s orthodoxy is, in my view, injurious to the unity of the Body of Christ and an abuse of leadership.
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Tom | | Back to Top | | |
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BADGERVOL
Registered Member
Date Joined Mar 2004
Total Posts : 27
| Posted 6/2/2004 5:59 AM (GMT -6) | | Thank you TGB. That was very insightful and helpful.
BADGER | | Back to Top | | |
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1Heart
Registered Member
Date Joined Feb 2004
Total Posts : 1128
| Posted 6/3/2004 4:08 PM (GMT -6) | | quote:
Originally posted by BADGERVOL
Again, I am not a full blown Open Theist yet, but at this point it makes more sense to me. Anyway, here is something I am thinking about and wanted some thoughts on.
When I begin to discuss this whole debate (OV vs. Calvinism primarily) I find it interesting that there are so many logical inconsistencies in the Calvinistic position that are allowed to be glossed over with the phrase, "well that is just a divine mystery." Being a reasonable person who is trying to come up with a theory that best explains the whole of scripture, this whole "mystery card" as I like to call it just doesn't hold a lot of water with me and seems to come across as very "convenient." If there is any parts of the OV that become hard to explain or appear to be contradictory, they jump all over the view and brand this a reason why it should not be held. So it seems no one else is allowed this ever resourceful "mystery card."
So what I am looking for is simply this. An example in scripture revolving around a completely different issue where one could pit two very contradictory verses against each other forming a very strange teaching in the Bible that violates the Law of Non-Contradiction so that I can bust out a theoretical "mystery card" and demonstrate how foolish this is to allow ourselves to pull this card in a debate.
So, OV experts of the Bible, (if you can make sense out of my wordy post) help me find some example of some theological debate that has verses that would elaborate this point.
Badge,
I'm not "well-versed" (pun intended) enough to come up with the contrasting verses that would allow you to pull out a theoretical "mystery card" (I'm sure others are), but I do have a few thoughts to add about your discussion.
I am not that familiar with calvinism either as most in the circles I "travel in" are arminianists. By the way, I was jovially told to stay away from anything that ended in "ist" or "ism," so I now refer to my
beliefs as the open view (jovially of course).
It is such an extreme, IMO, between calvinism and open theism. One has God controlling every detail of our lives (exhaustive divine foreknowledge and determinism), and the other has God "taking a risk" in the sense that we have libertarian free will. The second has made so much more sense to me over the past two years that I have come to embrace it but am still learning.
I find most people, calvinists, arminianists...live like they believe in the open view in some areas. For example, they pray like they can make a difference. Perhaps those verses that talk about prayer and the difference prayer makes might be verses that you are looking for. "If my people who are called by my name..." or "The prayers of a righteous man..."
I now share what difference this view has made in my life (practically), and that seems to be more appealing than trying to pit it against another view. I've realized that loving is more important than being right, but on the other hand if you have someone who loves to discuss and doesn't get upset - that is wonderful too. I haven't met another Christian in my city (with the exception of one) who holds to the open view. Anyone else that I have mentioned it to has never heard of it. Most people don't even know what terms like calvinist, arminianist, molinist, process theist, universalist...mean. They believe what they have been taught (for the most part), and unless they are part of a non-denominational church like I am, another view is discouraged or corrected (or worse). I am amazed how ungracious believers can become when someone disagrees with their "theology." I am not in any way referring to anyone on the board here. I am referring to conversations that I have heard or been a part of in churches over the years.
I have learned to "walk carefully," and carry a big stick (oops...just kidding). I have learned (and am still learning) to take the high road, and I hope that as others see that, that they will be open when a natural opportunity arises to share nuggets that I have uncovered in the open view.
My thoughts (a few of them)
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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