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Date Joined Jun 2001
Total Posts : 516
| Posted 6/28/2001 5:21 PM (GMT -6) |   |
TGB
02/19/01 11:26 AM
He knows but is still surprised!
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Hey open and closed friends-
I was recently speaking with a friend about OT. He admits that passages which describe God as “grieving,” “regretting,” etc. do indeed describe God as he is and not merely as he appears to be, but he (relying heavily on Hugh Ross’s Beyond the Cosmos which seeks to describe the extra-dimensionality of God) denies that these passages describe God as he ONLY is. That is, though God genuinely regretted having made man in Gen. 6, this need not necessitate the conclusion that God must not therefore have foreknown the depths of sin that were the cause of his grief.
When I asked him if that made sense, he answered, “Not to our finite human understanding, but that’s what Scripture says, so both are true.” That is, God knew exactly what WOULD happen from eternity, but also genuinely experienced grief over it when it did happen (and not before it happened).
Is that coherent to anybody?
Tom
Posted Originally From: Open Theism Information Site
GODesteem
05/25/01 10:41 PM
RE: He knows but is still surprised!
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Hi Tom! It is very coherent to me. If God's Word teaches it, we must submit to it. God created us in His image, and not the other way around. Why is it impossible for God to be griefed by sin, and yet still use sin for a righteous purpose (which pleases Him)? By what standard are you testing God with? I think the book of Job puts an end to any human attempting to analyze suffering and evil and adequately explain God's purposes. If we cannot fathom the creation of the universe, then we will never fathom the details of God's plan.
"Our God is an awesome God, He reigns from Heaven above
With wisdom, power and love, Our God is an awesome God!"
Benjamin Musclow
Posted Originally From: Open Theism Information Site
boydreamer101
05/26/01 2:32 PM
RE: He knows but is still surprised!
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That is utterly incoherant to me. If God knows from all of eternity something that will take place, he cannot be surprised, unless he hides his own knowledge from himself, or remains in a state of surpisedness for all of eternity, if he does, I think this deems him weak. Why would an all powerful god have to remain surprised for all eternity over some peon, finite thing....one amongst millions of events that could surprise him. If what you say is true, then god knows all this evil that happens everyday but is surprised by it...I would have a much easier time clinging to a more classical view which would assert that god knows everything and isn't surprised...maybe dissapointed. At any rate, I still wouldn't cling to even that. Its up to the individual to decide in these matters...isn't it funny how they tend to stir up anger and division...?! At any rate, good stuff, lets keep discussing. Peace
PS-Have you Read God of The Possible by Doc? If not I highly recommend it you may understand some of the positions better even if you disagree. God knows that it may happen and therefore if it does his surprise is real, and his comfort even more so!
Posted Originally From: Christus Victor Ministries
boydreamer101
05/26/01 2:35 PM
RE: He knows but is still surprised!
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“Not to our
finite human understanding, but that’s what Scripture says, so
both are true.”
I would suggest that the authors were also finite human beings to some extent, and they also knew scripture well at least in hindsight scriptural writings...i doubt that they would have spouted off some ridiculous writings...god did not intend scripture to be beyond our finite human understanding, just give us a rock with funny paintings on it instead you know...no difference...i submit that this view that open theists hold synthesizes all of the given information into coherancy..the only thing that stands in the way of holding this for most people is a long tradition and fear that they are undermining the soveriegnty of god.
peace ya'll
Posted Originally From: Christus Victor Ministries
GregBoyd
05/26/01 10:48 PM
Eternal regrets?
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I can give some meaning to the notion that God grieves over things he eternally forsees (but not that he eternally predestines). However, I do not see what it means to affirm that truly God changes his mind or regrets the outcome of decisions he makes if in fact the future is exhaustively settled in his mind or will an eternity before it comes to pass. I just can't get a coherent picture of this. Help me out.
Doc
Posted Originally From: Christus Victor Ministries
Newcomb
05/26/01 10:56 PM
RE: He knows but is still surprised!
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OK, here is the problem: Either God is irrational, or he is rational, and, we are either rational or irrational.
If God is rational and we are rational, then he can explain anything to us in terms that are both accurate and that we, as rational being, can understand.
WHENEVER you get answer that escape reality by saying things similar to "God's ways are not our ways, we just can understand because ___" (fill in the blank). Or terms like "our finite ability," and others like it, you then know you are dealing with a mysticism, an irrational belief system that cannot justify it's belief so it defaults to a transcendent leap of faith which is above explaination. Well, if you cannot explain it, why should I, a rational being, believe it???
Christian mysticism comes from Plato et al. You run into it most frequently when people need to escape rational thought to avoid dealing with inconsistencies in their theologies.
The question here (see subject line) is a statement like this. It is irrational. Not claiming TGB is, but the sentence itself is nonsense. TGB is trying to make sense of it, there isn't any.
The two ideas (God knows from eternity past: God is surprised when it happen) are mutually exclusive. They CANNOT both be true at the same time. This is a direct violation of the 3rd law of logic, therefore it is irrational. So, you have no choice, if you believe it, you must say that God is irrational. The implication is directly implied and cannot be escaped by piling on mystic ideas of how the two can be justified. They cannot be.
To clarify, Calvinism is a Christian Mysticism and does these types of things continually. It is irrational.
If God is communicating to us and if he is irrational, then I would suggest not listening to him. I posit that God ir rational, and that we should listen to him and if we find ourselves in a theology that makes irrational statements, we uncerimoniously abandon it and look for the truth.
"Newk'em"
Posted Originally From: Christus Victor Ministries
writerdad
05/27/01 12:30 AM
RE: RE: He knows but is still surprised!
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ACtually, Godsteem, you are assuming that it teaches that because you are presupposing it because of the type of theology you ascribe to. That does not neccessary mean it does teach that. John 17:3 Harold
Posted Originally From: Christus Victor Ministries
GODesteem
05/27/01 8:27 AM
RE: RE: RE: He knows but is still surprised!
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Hi Harold! I think Tom needs to clarify his question, rather than me having to delete my presuppositions. The title of the topic is "He knows but is still surprised", however, the examples Tom gave have nothing to do with God being surprised! All they mention is God being grieved over sin, when God knew the human decisions to sin before they occurred. Even Mr. Boyd admitted he could grasp God knowing a decision beforehand, and still expressing genuine grief at the time of the decision. Please don't cloud the issue with distractions when the issue isn't even defined by the author!
Posted Originally From: Open Theism Information Site
Still_unsure
05/27/01 9:25 PM
RE: RE: RE: RE: He knows but is still surprised!
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Hi GODesteem:
Please clarify how it is that God could become sorry that he created mankind, slaughter them all save one family and have foreknown the depth of these people sins from the foundations of the world.
Gen 6:5-7
"5 Then the Lord saw the wickedness of man was great on the earth,
and that every intent on the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually.
6 And the Lord was sorry that He had made man on the earth, and He
was greived in his heart.
7 And the Lord said, "I will blot out man whom I have created from
the face of the land, from man to animals to creepimg things and to birds of the sky; for I am sorry that I have made them."
While the verses don't use the word "surprised", it is certainly implied in the text. If this was planned from the beginning, God could have saved alot of killing by beginning the story with Noah instead of Adam.
Rob
Posted Originally From: Christus Victor Ministries
GODesteem
05/28/01 10:01 AM
He knows but is still surprised!
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Greetings to Rob, in the precious name of Jesus! Actually, it looks like you could ask "Doc" the same question, because he admits he could grasp God foreknowing sin and still being grieved by it when it happens. Instead of me talking about it, let me quote an example in Scripture that speaks to this very issue.
"The Lord said to Moses, "Behold, you are about to lie down with your fathers; and this people will arise and play the harlot with the strange gods of the land, into the midst of which they are going, and will forsake Me and break My covenant which I have made with them. Then My anger will be kindled against them in that day, and I will forsake them and hide My face from them, and they will be consumed, and many evils and troubles will come upon them; so that they will say in that day, 'Is it not because our God is not amongst us that these evils have come upon us?' But I will surely hide My face in that day because of all the evil which they will do, for they will turn to other gods. Now therefore, write this song for yourselves, and teach it to the sons of Israel; put it on their lips, so that this song may be a witness for Me against the sons of Israel. For when I bring them into the land flowing with milk and honey, which I swore to their fathers, and they have eaten and are satisfied and become prosperous, then they will turn to other gods and serve them, and spurn Me and break My covenant. Then it shall come about, when many evils and troubles have come upon them, that this song will testify before them as a witness (for it shall not be forgotten from the lips of their descendants); for I know their intent which they are developing today, before I have brought them into the land which I swore" (Deuteronomy 31:16-21).
The text makes it explicit several times that God knows Israel's future rebellion, and even describes it is some detail. This text also shows that it is perfectly "logical" for God to know something fully in advance and yet express the appropriate emotion and ethical response to that situation when it actually arises in history. Knowing something in advance does not preclude real relational interaction! God knows fully what Israel will do, and he enters fully into intimate relationship with them, full of anger and deeply involved in response to their wickedness.
If you want to explore this further, I suggest you pick up John Piper's "Desiring God". He spends a chapter discussing God's sovereignty and control over evil and suffering.
I pray that this helps you as you grapple with these issues! I certainly do not claim exhaustive knowledge of the depths of God's nature!
Benjamin Musclow
Posted Originally From: Open Theism Information Site
Newcomb
05/28/01 12:29 PM
Predictive prophesy or telic prophesy?
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Godesteem quotes Deuteronomy 31:16-21 but this section seems to be one of conditional prediction based on past behavior and not one of absolute foreknowledge.
Let me explain.
My youngest son Timothy likes to play on the raised beds at the back of the yard. When we say "stay off the wall" this is what we are refering to. When he goes outside we will often tell him "stay off the wall." Several days ago I told him this then stood at the window and predicted to my wife that he would shortly be on the wall. He was.
I did prophesy that event based not on absolute knowledge of future events, but on my experience with him in the past.
Now, if I had attached a discipline to that command like this: "Stay off the wall or you will be sent to your room for an hour" and then gone to my wife and said, "I told Tim to stay off the wall but he will surely go onto the wall, that will make me mad that he disobeyed me, I will have to punich him for that," then I would be in the same place the text in Deuteronomy 31:16-21 is, predictive prophesy with my responses built in.
We must make distinction about the type of prophesy. Is this God predicting what people will do based on his knowledge of what they have done in the past. As with Tim, I knew, given enough time, he would be on that wall just as God knew, based on past history, that the children of Isreal would eventually turn their backs on God because like us, when times are good, we turn our backs on him.
This is opposed to telic prophesy were God tells you beforehand what he is going to do.
I can predict with reasonable accuracy, but not absolute accuracy, what my childs response will be, just like God. I can tell you ahead of time what I will do, but unlike God I can't always make it happen.
I wish I could, I am an entrepreneur and that would have made me wealthy many times over by now, but I can't. God can.
And neither of us can predict with absolute accuracy what free will agents will do in the future. See Joshua 3:10, contrasted with Joshua 9:14-15, 13:13, 15:63, 16:10 as evidence of this fact.
Posted Originally From: Christus Victor Ministries
Kassiopeia
05/28/01 7:46 PM
RE: RE: He knows but is still surprised!
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newcomb,
What you say is only true if God=reason. There is nothing higher than God/reason, which under your terms seem to be the same thing. I would suggest the possibilities are more numerous than you allow. When something adheres to reason, it is rational. When it does not adhere to reason, it can either be irrational (reason is “broken”) OR it can operate according to its own “reason” of sorts, method, or system—which could override the rational, because it is higher than reason. What I’m saying I guess is that if something is not rational, one has more options than calling the thing irrational.
Also your system only works under the conditions that you or some other most highly intelligent and rational being can fully grasp all that is reasonable. Lets say God=reason. He is the great logician. If that is what he is, nothing assures me of being able to reason as he does. Nothing says that I will arrive at the same logical conclusion he does. My chain of reason can become quite skewed even as I believe it is most rational. Ever had a math teacher that could do the problems better than you could? You always got them wrong. How is it any different with God. If he is the highest rational being (Which I believe he is and then some). How can I know that through reasoning, if the only thing I can be sure of is that my reasoning is fallible.
Just some thoughts on why I think reason is not all it is made out to be. Be reasonable. Reason away. But even reason has its limits.
Good post.
Kassiopeia
Posted Originally From: Christus Victor Ministries
Newcomb
05/28/01 10:20 PM
A=A+ what??
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Kassiopeia, you are calling in mysticism. First, I didn't claim that GoD=reason, but it is according to what you mean by that phrase, so I'll let that go. Let's move on:
1) How would you know if God had a "higher" type of reasoning?
2) If God has a "higher" type of reasoning than man, why did he withhold it from man?
3) What rules of logic do you need for logical functions beyond the basic four? vis; 1. The Law of Identity: "A is A" 2. The Law of Non-Contradiction: "A is not Non-A" 3. The Law of Excluded Middle: "Either A or Non-A", and 4) Rational Inference.
From these are built all other rules of forms of argument, methods, etc. etc. It is how we define truth and falsity.
To claim that God has a different logic is to claim you have knowledge that man cannot have.
Also, if there were a new rule in logic, it must be consistent with the current laws or itself be irrational and therefore not a law of logic. The basic laws can't contradict each other or the laws would be irrational. So, even if there is another rule or two we don't know about, for God to be considered rational, he must still conform to those we know of, or he is to be considered irrational, not just different or better or higher, irrational. That is the correct term.
Your suggesting that there are more possibilities is interesting but founded in mysticism. All mysticism claim to have a special knowledge that others simply do not understand. That is the simplest way to discover mysticisms.
As for the idea that things "can operate according to its own 'reason' of sorts. . .," people who do this are locked up. This is called being irrational, or worse. Now, you can use revisionistic terms and come up with any definition you like, but it is still irrational.
This isn't a method of defining rationality that came by consensis, it is a neccissary definition. It can't be otherwise.
When I read a "scripture" that is supposedly inspired, yet it is irrational, say, it tells me an apple is not an apple, I reject that as being inspired by God. Why? Because it is false. It is an error. Those rules define truth and flasity.
To do otherwise is to place a vedic traditions on par with Christianity. It would make the irrational verses in the Book of Mormon the equivalent of the Bible. There would be no way to determine what was true and false because those four rules ARE what determine truth.
In fact, the phrase Jesus used which states, "I am the way, the truth, and the light" becomes the same as Ether 2:23 where Joe Smith tells the story about one aledged Jared listening to "God" saying he can't put a window into his boat because it would break into pieces (glass windows in 600 BC??)!
You see, if God can break those laws, we can't identify (1st law) what he says, we can't know if he means something else (2nd law), or know if he also means the opposite of what he is saying (3rd law) and cannot understand if there are implications beyond his words (4th law).
So, I challenge you to identify which of these laws God can violate. Then explain how we can know anything about him if that law doesn't apply to him.
This isn't like having a better teacher. We can all apply these rules, they are not hard to understand.
If you are so sure your reasoning is fallable, why did you write to try and convince me you have a better way of thinking? How can less rational be considered better reasoning?
Sorry, but your post is pushing a traditional escape mysticism that so permeates the church today that we no longer trust our ability to hold a discorse about truth. The arguments are old and usually used when good arguments fail to win so we default to mysticism to escape the rational inference of our belief system.
Thanks for the try. Write again sometime.
"Newk'em"
Posted Originally From: Christus Victor Ministries
TGB
05/29/01 2:14 AM
RE: RE: RE: RE: He knows but is still surprised!
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Ben-
Gen. 6 may not mention “surprise,” but it’s difficult to conceive of his “grieving” or “regretting” without an element of surprise involved. My original question related to the whole range of possibilities in the emotional life of God. You can certainly insist that God knows the future exhaustively but still grieves, is surprised, and regrets decisions HE has made if you like, but I don’t see that you can assert that this makes sense or is coherent to US. If you think it’s coherent, please demonstrate this coherency with an analogy.
About Doc’s comment, you commented: “Even Mr. Boyd admitted he could grasp God knowing a decision beforehand, and still expressing genuine grief at the time of the decision.” Maybe he should clear it up, but check out his entire statement: “I can give some [my bold] meaning to the notion that God grieves over things he eternally foresees (but not that he eternally predestines). However, I do not see what it means to affirm that truly God changes his mind or regrets the outcome of decisions he makes if in fact the future is exhaustively settled in his mind or will an eternity before it comes to pass.[my bold]”
To begin with, you deny simple foreknowledge, so your claiming the support of Doc’s “admitting he could grasp God knowing a decision beforehand and still expressing genuine grief” doesn’t seem to me to support your determinism. In any event, however, I think you’re misunderstanding him. Doc follows with a statement (which I made bold) that contrasts what he concedes to begin with (i.e., that he can give some meaning to the notion that God grieves over things he eternally foresees) with what I think he claims is actually happening in Gen. 6 (i.e., that God has “regretted” the outcome of a decision HE made). So, as I read Doc, I hear him denying that any sense whatsoever can be made out of the GENESIS text itself on either the deterministic or simple foreknowledge view of the passage.
If I've misunderstood Doc, then let's have him clear it up.
Tom
Posted Originally From: Open Theism Information Site
Kassiopeia
05/29/01 10:15 AM
RE: A=A+ what??
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Sounds like you’ve been on the soap box about mysticism before. Sounds like you’ve got a handle on the logic too—never taken logic, so I wouldn’t know. Just encountered the idea of infinite dimensions in some ugly math course I had to take. My thought is: if there are only three dimensions that I know of and we can theorize about infinitely many more and do math problems with those infinity variables, THEN I am obligated to exhaust the possibilities in my dealing with rational and irrational options.
I’m not in to defending mysticism, the irrational etc. I am simply purporting that there are more options than for a thing to be either IRRATIONAL or RATIONAL. The RATIONAL, the IRRATIONAL, the HYPERRATIONAL—these are simply logical possibilities, not an argument for mysticism.
Science and logic has its limits. We have run into those limits. The limits point to something beyond the rational. We have not arrived at the great unifying principle yet and many more intelligent people than you or I have made an attempt for it. In science, we have this joke we like to tell to demonstrate.
There’s this scientist who has been working on arriving at the great unifying principle all his life. He dies before he finishes his research and comes to a conclusion. He arrives at the pearly gates and asks to see God immediately. He stands before God and the first words out of his mouth are, “What is the great unifying principle?” God answers, “Which one?” (yup, that’s supposed to be funny)
Just curious: What so you do with Biblical inconsistencies? There was a guy on here who was trying to list all the places in the Bible were the facts don’t line up. Like the day Jesus died. The gospels don’t all agree on which day it was.
Kass
Anyone seen Hegel around here (never mind)
Posted Originally From: Christus Victor Ministries
GregBoyd
05/29/01 10:34 AM
God was Walley-Poke-Skodu ng He Made Humanity!
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TGB has once again nailed it! I can give some meaning to the idea that God simply forsees what is going to happen and is genuinely grieved by it -- if it could have, and should have, been other than it will be. The passage you cite in Duet. is an example of this.
But I cannot get a clear concept of what it means to say that God regretted making human beings -- truly regreted, to the point of destroying them and starting over! -- if in fact they turned out exactly as he foreknew they would turn out when he created them. How can you regret a decision that turned out exactly as you knew it would when you made the decision??? Still less (per impossible) can I give meaning to the idea that God regretted making human beings if they turned out exactly as God predestined them to turn out.
Scripture may as well say God "walley poke-skodung that he made man, and therefore destroyed them." The meaning is the same -- so far as I can see. That is, there is no clear meaning.
Might I also just weigh in my vote in favor of Newcomb's point about logic. I would encourage you, Newcomb, not to label all views that appeal to irrational mystery as "mysticism" -- for the word means something rather precise in Religious Studies circles which I don't think you mean to appeal to that meaning. [if you do, you are very inaccurate]. Still, I think your point is well taken. If God can violate the laws of contradiction, than we can believe everything and nothing, for from a contradiction anything follows.
God could be all holy and Satan at the same -- doing the same deed! God could be omnipotent and not-exist, love all and hate all, be incarnate as Jesus Christ and regard Jesus Christ as a demon, all at once. Communication presupposes rationality. Faith may go beyond reason, but it cannot go against reason [in the sense of affirming a contradiction], for a contradiction is meaningless... walley poke-skodung...
Doc
Posted Originally From: Christus Victor Ministries
Newcomb
05/30/01 11:09 PM
RE: RE: A=A+ what??
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First, there are not just three dimensions. We wouldn't be able to move or think, there would be no tomorrow, or yesterday. These are elements of the fourth dimension, time. There are lots of dimensions, math is the result of ones I am unfamiliar with but they relate to logic as well.
As for rational v irrational, there are only two options, sorry, but either a statement is rational (does not contradict the rules of logic and reason) or it is irrational (does contradict the laws of logic and reason.) There isn't another option regardless of your opinion.
Mysticisms claim that the laws of rational thought are irrelevant so mutually exclusive things can be true at the same time. This is hog wash. Sorry, but it is.
About 100 years ago in India a guy named Rammakrisha simply decided that the mystical thought of the mystical religions held equal status as western logic.
What is wrong with this? Well, first it put in geographical terms something that needed to be described in rational academic terms. He should have said that irrational mysticism is as correct as rational thought. But of course, this would have sounded ridiculous so he couched it in geographical terms, and religious terms (our religion is as good as yours).
This crossed the ocean as transcendentalism with Thoreau el al. It because vogue to by metaphysical (in the false sense of the word). This came the Fab-Four and their trips to India in the 1960's and we opened our doors and welcomed TM, direct Hinduism and the New Age movement, all of the same ilk.
These arguments skirt that. They are similar to "tolerance" and similar ideas that the irrational can be rational.
You lumped science and logic together. Logic has two major divisions, inductive logic which is post priori (after examining the evidence) and deductive logic which is a priori (before examining the evidence). Science used inductive logic. It can only predict with a certain level of accuracy or confidence the probability that something may be true. It cannot use deductive reasoning, yet through deductive reasoning is the only was to deduce absolute truth (not final truth, but absolute).
So your statement lumping together science and logic doesn't fly. Science is indeed limited as explained. Logic is not. It applies to everything and everybody including God. If someone speaks to you claiming to be God and is not rational, it isn't God.
This does not prevent God from being counterintuitive, which really means against inductive logic ("leave your homeland and I will show you a new land"), but that is not the same as being irrational because God knows more that we do. But to know something, you must have rational categories, or else, all you have is (Hagelian) data gibberish.
As for Biblical inconsistencies, you would have to list them one at a time to determine if they were God saying something was going to happen and didn't or if it were a translation problem, or language problem from KJV, etc.
I don't think I'm going to hold me breath for "modern" science to find the great unifying principle when they start with a false assumption and are still heavily influenced by Helenistic thought. You can see it in Einstein, Hawkings, and others.
You cannot come to a Grand Unifying Theory ("GUT") without the grand master. Ain't gonna happen.
OK, One bad joke deserves aother: Descartes is sitting in a bar late one night and the bar tender says "We're closing in five minutes. Would you like one last drink?" Descartes looks does and says, "I think not" and immediately he vanishes!
"Newk'em"
Posted Originally From: Christus Victor Ministries
Newcomb
05/30/01 11:42 PM
RE: God was Walley-Poke-Sko du ng He Made Humanity!
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Hey Doc, thanks for the support. Well stated!
Still praying for your ministry. CABC finally has a new pastor on the way. Glad Writerdad stepped up to the plate. He does good work.
I use "mysticism" in a broad way, not specific. We, of course, have a mystical relationship with God in part referred to because we can't understand how he overcame the "gulf" if you will, but my use refers to a system that escapes reason by claiming "other" rational systems of thought.
The question is, of course, how would one know if another existed? But they invariably lead to an irrational power struggle where someone wants to be King of the Hill but can't do it rationally so, they escape to irrationality, claim special knowledge that one must be "initiated" into to understand, and all lead back to one person or an oligarchy where the person stands in the Hermes position to explain what the gods have spoken.
The trouble is, of course, how did they get the special knowledge?
These guys pop up all over and all have similar stories of why they are King of the Hill.
Various mysticisms are in most churches (at least small pockets), all religions, science, etc. etc. You can find them by tracing their statements like "you just don't understand" or similar ad hominem attacks on the party who is actually winning the arguments.
It is really a way of categorizing systems of thought that escape reason to hang onto a viewpoint.
All mysticisms seek to explain a mystery, something hidden. So there must be a Hermes to give the hermeneutic and explain what the word of the belief system mean, much like Calvinism did when translating the Bible and explaining to us what is meant by "predestined" and "foreknowledge" etc.
Whenever someone tries to use revisionism, I call it mysticism because they are explaining a hidden understanding to words we all use and understand.
I even classify the non-OV people as mystic because they have to come up with incredible twists of rational though to explain what they mean and how it could work. Invariably they turn to escape mechanisms with phrases such as "God's ways are not our ways" "we are limited in our understanding" "Not to our finite human understanding, but that's what Scripture says, so both are true." Or "He knows but is still surprised" (sorry guys ).
There is a certain commonality in all of them.
Blessings.
Newcomb
Posted Originally From: Christus Victor Ministries
glamdring777
05/31/01 12:05 AM
RE: He knows but is still surprised!
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Newcomb,
I understand where you are coming from but I far as I can tell all systems have a bit of mystery, like God's character or variables in creation. If there is still a prophetic voice in the church today and one that gives more than the predictive type prophecy then that person might get visions of something that could happen in the future.
Weren't they usually pictures of warning about what could happen if the people didn't repent or pray, or visions of what blessing might come if they stood in the gap? Perhaps this is what Kass is getting at.
glamdring
Posted Originally From: Christus Victor Ministries
GODesteem
06/02/01 8:21 AM
RE: Predictive prophesy or telic prophesy?
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Greetings Newcomb! I understand your take on Deuteronomy 31, but don't quite see how there is anything conditional in the passage. After all, God makes it quite clear that "when many evils and troubles have come upon them, that this song will testify before them as a witness (for it shall not be forgotten from the lips of their descendants); for I know their intent which they are developing today, before I brought them into the land which I swore" (31:21).
Why would God have Moses proclaim a song to the people of Israel, if all of the above was conditional?? Even Moses states the following:
"Take this book of the law and place it beside the ark of the covenant of the Lord your God, that it may remain there as a witness against you. For I know your rebellion and your stubbornness; behold, while I am still alive with you today, you have been rebellious against the Lord; how much more, then, after my death? Assemble to me all the elders of your tribes and your officers, that I may speak these words in their hearing and call the heavens and the earth to witness against them. For I know that after my death you will act corruptly and turn from the way which I have commanded you; and evil will befall you in the latter days, for you will do that which is evil in the sight of the Lord, provoking Him to anger with the work of your hands" (31:26-29).
Obviously there are conditional prophecies in the Bible, for example Jeremiah 18:1-12. However, I see nothing in Deuteronomy 31 to suggest any conditionality! Both God and Moses proclaim how the people of Israel will act in the future ("in the latter days", v. 29), and how God will be angry with them at that time. There is no mention of how God will turn back his anger if they repent. The song Moses gives is a witness of God against the rebellious people, and whenever they would sing it it would vindicate God's righteousness, and show that He does not take sin lightly in the least.
As for God's foreknowledge in the passage, verse 21 does state that God "know(s) their intent which they are developing, before (He) brought them into the land which (He) swore." This is the basis for God telling Moses to proclaim the song to the Israelites (see the rest of the verse). God knows the people's intentions, and therefore predicts how they will act, and how He will act in the future. When they remember the words of the song, they will see that He is the One true God, who declares the beginning from the end, and from whom they can never hide! God will not be ignored, for He is a jealous God!
Benjamin Musclow
Posted Originally From: Open Theism Information Site
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