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Sisters of Cain
Registered Member
Date Joined Mar 2004
Total Posts : 431
| Posted 8/7/2004 12:53 PM (GMT -6) |   | | | |
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Tom
Registered Member
Date Joined Jul 2001
Total Posts : 10353
| Posted 8/7/2004 2:25 PM (GMT -6) | | Been here and done this...
You forgot one, Lee:
God can't unconditionally determine for human beings their morally responsible choices to love or not.
And by the way, the Isaiah passage appears to me to confirm that God doens't always get what he wants, with one exception--no open theist claims "God can't think of the possibility that some Israelites might rebel in the desert." Oh my no. Remember, THIS denial belongs on YOUR list of things God can't do, for it is open theists ALONE (and believe me, we are alone in this for it is THE defining affirmation of open theism) who affirm that God CAN create a world that's partly open and CAN know its "possible outcomes" as possible outcomes (and of course that our world gives every evidence of being just such a world).
With regard to the other items in your list, if open theists were claiming that with regard to the unconditional exercise of his power God cannot do these things, then you could tie us to the stake and light the fire. But that's not our claim (which we've repeated as well a thousand times without it ever registering). Our claim is that God is capable and free, if he desires, to condition whatever actions HE wishes to upon factors outside his own will. If he's confident with facing such contingency, hey, I'm comfortable with him facing it. Don't assume he's as weak and limited as you are. It's that simple.
I CAN paint my daughter's room alone, but I CAN'T paint it alone and also paint it WITH HER. So if my goal includes my daughter, and painting the room with her is my way of spending time with her to get to know her, then if it's not painted because she chooses not to spend the time with me, it doesn't express a WEAKNESS of mine to claim "Tom COULDN'T paint the room." You ignore the larger context of my PURPOSE which in turn explains why I couldn't paint the room. It's not an absolute claim about my power. It's a reflection my choice to limit the unconditional exercise of my power to make room for the power I gave my daughter, the power to say "yes" to my invitation to paint the room together. Of course, I have the muscel to paint it alone. But what I CAN'T do is paint it alone and accomplish my goal. So if God's goals for human beings in general are of such a nature that they can be accomplished only by God openning himself up to contingency and disappointment, then throwing out phrases like "God can't dry up a river," "God can't do this," or "God can't do that" to show how WEAK we think God is entirely misses the point of debate (and you STILL miss the point of debate Lee, after all this time).
You know folks, I'm more convinced than ever that the fundamental problem with theological determinism is the philosophical assumption (and that's all it is) that God's will must be unconditioned by anything outside himself and that anything else is beneath his glory.
Back to the Isaiah passage:
quote:
Isaiah 50:2 When I came, why was there no one? When I called, why was there no one to answer? Was my arm too short to ransom you? Do I lack the strength to rescue you? By a mere rebuke I dry up the sea, I turn rivers into a desert; their fish rot for lack of water and die of thirst.
My my. Look at something here that God couldn't do. He couldn't insure on this occasion at least that when he came he'd "find someone," or that when he called, "someone would answer." What a tiny God.
The point, of course, is that when Israel lines up her will with God's, repents, and cries out in response to God, then rescuing her is no more difficult than drying up a river. It's a picture, Lee.
And yes, God "looks on the earth, and it trembles; He touches the mountains, and they smoke." Amazing that he is then unable to guarantee that when he shows up for his response (as Isaiah says), it's not the response he wants, that when he calls, he doesn't get the respones he wants, when he wants to redeme and rescue, he doesn't get the response he wants.
Of course, of course. Finding nobody WAS God's determined will. Having nobody answer him WAS what God wanted. Make sense to us? No. So play the mystery trump card. Wham. Game won. You place God (and your view of him, but nobody says that) at the CENTER of your theology while open theists put all their rationalizing and logic diagrams at the center and whittle God down to human limitations.
Right.
Tom  | | Back to Top | | |
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Lee Merrill
booted
Date Joined Jun 2001
Total Posts : 723
| Posted 8/7/2004 3:12 PM (GMT -6) | | Hi everyone,
quote:
Jeff: There probably is room for hyperbole, like the Land flowing with milk and honey, but those figures of speech will be those that can be explained by a natural hermeneutic. But those prophecies will be accurate because God ACTS to make them so.
I agree that the prophecies will be accurate! And I believe that we need not stretch them to fit.
Acts 27:25 So keep up your courage, men, for I have faith in God that it will happen just as he told me.
quote:
Tom: God can't unconditionally determine for human beings their morally responsible choices to love or not.
Well, we've been here, too! People need to have love from God, more than just a choice is needed, the love is needed, too.
1 John 4:10 This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us...
1 John 4:7 ... for love comes from God.
1 John 4:19 We love because he first loved us.
Yes, people are responsible to love. But God has to give this, too.
quote:
... no open theist claims "God can't think of the possibility that some Israelites might rebel in the desert." Oh my no. Remember, THIS denial belongs on YOUR list of things God can't do...
God does bring about repentance, though, if I'm understanding what you mean:
1KI 8:58 May he turn our hearts to him...
1KI 18:37 … you are turning their hearts back again.
2TI 2:25 ... in the hope that God will grant them repentance ...
And he does harden hearts! Romans 9...
quote:
Our claim is that God is capable and free, if he desires, to condition whatever actions HE wishes to upon factors outside his own will. … I CAN paint my daughter's room alone, but I CAN'T paint it alone and also paint it WITH HER.
But that's another item that God can't do then! He can't think of the people whose will he doesn't want to override, and has to change his stated plan. Once you say "I will paint the room" (unconditionally! These prophecies surely take into account all of God's purposes, and potential human choices), then I assume you have satisfied yourself that all necessary requirements will be fulfilled.
quote:
Isaiah 50:2 When I came, why was there no one? When I called, why was there no one to answer? Was my arm too short to ransom you? Do I lack the strength to rescue you? By a mere rebuke I dry up the sea, I turn rivers into a desert; their fish rot for lack of water and die of thirst.
Look at something here that God couldn't do. He couldn't insure on this occasion at least that when he came he'd "find someone," or that when he called, "someone would answer."
I don't think God is asking for help here, though! Are you saying God didn't know why no one responded? That he thought someone would, and needed someone to tell him why no one did?
quote:
Of course, of course. Finding nobody WAS God's determined will. Having nobody answer him WAS what God wanted.
There are verses like that:
Romans 11:32 For God has bound all men over to disobedience so that he may have mercy on them all.
I think this is the reason God asks why:
Isaiah 63:17 Why, O Lord, do you make us wander from your ways and harden our hearts so we do not revere you?
So we will ask him! He knows why…
Blessings,
Lee
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"Even now we seem to have dim glimpses into regions
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Tom
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Date Joined Jul 2001
Total Posts : 10353
| Posted 8/7/2004 5:01 PM (GMT -6) | | | | |
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Mayflower
Registered Member
Date Joined Mar 2002
Total Posts : 445
| Posted 8/7/2004 5:48 PM (GMT -6) | | ,
AMEN.
TGB wrote:
quote:
You know folks, I'm more convinced than ever that the fundamental problem with theological determinism is the philosophical assumption (and that's all it is) that God's will must be unconditioned by anything outside himself and that anything else is beneath his glory.
,
,
Peace & blessings,
<><
, | | Back to Top | | |
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Tom
Registered Member
Date Joined Jul 2001
Total Posts : 10353
| Posted 8/8/2004 12:51 AM (GMT -6) | | quote:
Originally posted by Sahid
Not to raise the temperature any more, but I think your God is slightly diminuitive, Lee. He can't make creatures that can freely choose Him. They can choose stuff after He has forced them to "choose" Him, but they cannot freely choose to accept Christ's sacrifice. It's like if the people in Brave New World were given a choice of careers within their cast. It's not really freedom.
I get your meaning, Sahid. And while it's true that the freedom which characters in a novel possess isn't genuine freedom, I'd like to make two short comments:
First, it's not accurate to say theological determinists (actually I prefer "deterministic compatibilism") believe God coerces or--the word you used above--"forces" us to do his will. You can only "force" somebody 'against their will'. But in the case of compatibilism this is out of the question since we always 'will' what God determines us to 'will'. In compatibilism you never have persons willing other than what God decees they will. So the complaint that God "forces" or "coerces" people can't be made against compatibilism. True, compatibilists find a false assurance in this, but let's not complicate things by assusing them of what they're not guilty of.
Secondly, though it's true that the characters in your novel don't possess genuine freedom, the problem isn't that they are "limited" within their cast to choose a career and aren't free outside that cast. Maybe I'm missing your point, but it seems to me that even if in writing the story the author assigned them a freedom to choose outside their cast, they'd still not be free. Even within their cast, the characters in Brave New World don't possess real freedom. They only do what their scripted to do. That's the problem. It's OK to have "limited" freedom. We all have limits on our freedom. I am not free to do a lot of things (have a child, fly unaided like a bird, breathe air unaided on the moon), that's OK. But I am free where it counts, and that's where God holds me acCOUNTable. It's whether we're free--given the exact same set of circumstances leading up to our choice--to choose other than we choose. That is, we are script writers and not just characters in someone else's play. Although in small ways delimited by God, we truly do co-author history with God. We're writing the story WITH him, painting the room WITH him.
Your comments on love and love were 'Wow' right on!
Peace,
Tom | | Back to Top | | |
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Tom
Registered Member
Date Joined Jul 2001
Total Posts : 10353
| Posted 8/8/2004 1:08 AM (GMT -6) | | quote:
Originally posted by jefscott
Lee,
I don't think Tom realizes that you were alluding to the prophecy posts. But I agree with you that any unconditional prophecy will come to pass accurately.
I gathered Lee was referring to the prophecy posts. I was trying to point to the issue of 'contingency' in conditional prophecies and why contingency, if it's real, must be real for God as well as for us (in fact, in order to be real for us), why God's facing contingency accounts for his not being able to obtain the desired results on occasion, and why such contingency doesn't make God "tiny" or weak.
Tom | | Back to Top | | |
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Lee Merrill
booted
Date Joined Jun 2001
Total Posts : 723
| Posted 8/8/2004 2:39 AM (GMT -6) | | Hi everyone,
quote:
1 John 4:19 We love because he first loved us.
Sahid: Why say God loved us first? Doesn't that imply that we love Him back?
Yes, but there's a sequence, God loves us, and because of that, we love him and others.
quote:
But if we make love mean 'choose to love', and we make love mean 'love involuntarily', we are dealing with two different things.
You could just as well say we must choose to have eyes, in order to see. We are involved in loving. But John doesn't say "we love because he first loved us, and then we made a decision to love." God gives us many good gifts, and you may say God forces us to have sight, or hands, or feet, or that the gardener forces his plants to have water. But "forcing love" is not speaking about love at all, parents love their children, but not with a selfish idea of getting love back from them, they just love them. "God is love," that's why he loves, and why he gives love. But we are in need of love, and the gift does bring about the result, "love never fails."
Now we can misuse our eyes or hands, so the analogy isn't perfect. But you can't go wrong by loving, with the love God gives, again, "love never fails." But we are needier than we think!
quote:
Sahid: I think your God is slightly diminutive, Lee. He can't make creatures that can freely choose Him.
God can think of that! I'm sure he can. There are consequences, though, if freely choosing God is the requirement, then how about archangels sinning, after it's all over and done with, and the whole mess starting again? How about people sinning, and falling out of heaven? It takes away the foundation, and the building goes down.
quote:
Tom: It's OK to have "limited" freedom.
That's what I hold to, that believers can really choose, within God's will, and that after the final day, they will be able to choose anything but sin. But that's not a major restriction, I think God's will is like the garden, with the fence around the forbidden tree. What is off-limits is finite, what we can choose is infinite.
John 8:36 So if the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed.
quote:
Although in small ways delimited by God, we truly do co-author history with God. We're writing the story WITH him, painting the room WITH him.
Yes, I agree!
Galatians 5:13 You, my brothers, were called to be free. But do not use your freedom to indulge the sinful nature; rather, serve one another in love.
John 15:15 I no longer call you servants, because a servant does not know his master's business. Instead, I have called you friends…
1 Corinthians 3:9 For we are God's fellow workers; you are God's field, God's building.
But I think the OV has made all prophecies and promises that involve human beings (well, that's all of them, actually!) contingent here.
For God may have made a promise, and we come into his office to claim it, and he says, "Well, I did really mean to do that. But something came up, rather unexpected in a way, some decision I shouldn't override, and … not now, I can't do this. Not now. Not this time."
So we find we have built our house on the sand after all, and down it goes, and all that is in it.
Numbers 23:19 Does he speak and then not act? Does he promise and not fulfill?
I think the Open View answer is "Yes, he does, actually…"
Blessings,
Lee
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"Even now we seem to have dim glimpses into regions
from which we receive no word to bring away" (George MacDonald) | | Back to Top | | |
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Similitude
Registered Member
Date Joined Apr 2004
Total Posts : 4968
| Posted 8/8/2004 5:15 AM (GMT -6) | | Tom,
quote:
I gathered Lee was referring to the prophecy posts. I was trying to point to the issue of 'contingency' in conditional prophecies and why contingency, if it's real, must be real for God as well as for us (in fact, in order to be real for us), why God's facing contingency accounts for his not being able to obtain the desired results on occasion, and why such contingency doesn't make God "tiny" or weak.
I agree with you, obviously. But SOC was claiming that a prophecy which was not ACCURATELY fulfilled was inaccurate because God can't influence people sufficiently to ensure the accuracy of the prophecy. But surely God would know if He couldn't sufficiently influence people and not make grandiose claims that He couldn't live up to.
I agree with Lee, that we can't retroactively say a prophecy is conditional just because it wasn't completely accurate. Typically, the conditional prophecies are either-or: Nineval WILL be destroyed or NOT, etc.
wjs | | Back to Top | | |
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Sisters of Cain
Registered Member
Date Joined Mar 2004
Total Posts : 431
| Posted 8/8/2004 3:57 PM (GMT -6) | | quote:
Originally posted by Mark C.
Secondly: If there is such a command to obey, as there is in loving God, is the one commanded responsible to obey as a free moral agent? Or, asked in another way, Is the created free to do as he pleases in relation to the Creator?
A command to obey PROVES the possibility that the creature can choose EITHER way. You don't command robots or computer programs to obey you, you program them to carry out tasks.
Would you command a blind man to look at something?
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feelinahole
Registered Member
Date Joined Jan 2004
Total Posts : 754
| Posted 8/8/2004 7:18 PM (GMT -6) | | | Lee: what did you hope to accomplish by such a thread? Tiny and juvenile. GOd needs to save us from ourselves. All of us. | | Back to Top | | |
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Tom
Registered Member
Date Joined Jul 2001
Total Posts : 10353
| Posted 8/9/2004 1:31 AM (GMT -6) | | Sahid: I disagree. Leaving only one option is force whether or not that option is preferable.
Tom: But in such a case I would, presumably, be conscious that this was being done to me and I’d also have the option of not choosing at all. My point is that with theological determinism, God determines our will, our choosing, so it is by definition incorrect to say he’s forcing us “against our wills” to choose. Yes, it still makes God responsible for our sinful choices, is impossible to demonstrate by ‘how’ we go about choosing, and undermines the ‘personal’ nature of our relationships.
Mark: Mr. TGB, You wrote, "God can't unconditionally determine for human beings their morally responsible choices to love or not."
Does this idea negate the command to "LOVE THE LORD THY GOD WITH ALL THY HEART..."? (Deut. 6:5; Mt. 22:37)
Tom: Hi Mark. No, I don’t think my statement negates the command to love God. I think it upholds it. What makes it difficult if not impossible to understand the command is the belief that God “unconditionally determines” our response to that command. Now that negates the command in my mind. A “command,” if it’s an intelligent command, presumes the freedom of response. God ‘commanding’ our love makes sense “as a command” if we, and not God, are the ones determining our response, for then we, and not God, are responsible for whether we obey or disobey.
Mark: Secondly: If there is such a command to obey, as there is in loving God, is the one commanded responsible to obey as a free moral agent? Or, asked in another way, Is the created free to do as he pleases in relation to the Creator?
Tom: Not free to do “as we please,” for I may please to do the impossible (fly like a bird, breathe unaided underwater, etc.). Nor am I free to do the impossible in relation to God (sin without consequence, enter heaven apart from Christ, kick God off his throne and borrow it for a few days, for example). But I am free to say “yes” or “no” to that for which God designed me to say "yes" or "no" to and for which he extends his grace to enable me to say "yes," and that includes responding to him in love. I don’t suppose our God-given freedom to be freedom to accomplish his ends and fulfill his commands “on our own” or “without his aid.” I only think it freedom to be free to receive or not receive God's aid when extended. With regard to loving God, I don’t suppose we are free to love him unaided BY him. God must initiate and invite. But this doesn’t lead us to compatibilism, in which I am not free to reject his grace.
Tom | | Back to Top | | |
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Sisters of Cain
Registered Member
Date Joined Mar 2004
Total Posts : 431
| Posted 8/9/2004 1:55 AM (GMT -6) | | quote:
Originally posted by jefscott
I agree with you, obviously. But SOC was claiming that a prophecy which was not ACCURATELY fulfilled was inaccurate because God can't influence people sufficiently to ensure the accuracy of the prophecy.
I didn't say that.
Does God know the future 100% accurately?
No.
Proof?
Prophecies.
If He says Tyre will be destroyed by Nebuchadnezzar and Nebuchadnezzar fails to destroy Tyre, it shows God didn't know the actuality that Nebuchadnezzar would fail to destroy Tyre. He knew the possibilities of success as well as failure.
God is even aware of this in Ezekial 29, sending Nebuchadnezzar down to Egypt to get the wages of spoil he failed to get at Tyre. | | Back to Top | | |
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Tom
Registered Member
Date Joined Jul 2001
Total Posts : 10353
| Posted 8/9/2004 11:14 AM (GMT -6) | | Sisters: Does God know the future 100% accurately? No. Proof? Prophecies...God didn't know the actuality that Nebuchadnezzar would fail to destroy Tyre. He knew the possibilities of success as well as failure.
Tom: just nit-pickin, but it's reeealy important!  If the fact of the matter was that things could possibly turn out this way or that, and God knew those possibilities, then how is this "inaccurate" knokwledge of the future? I suggest we affirm that God knows the future 100% accurately. What the future is, that is, whether it's expressible completely in terms of what "will" and "will not" is a different issue. If God knows some "might and might not" props, then that's 100% accuracy too, provided "might and might not" props accurately reflect reality (which we believe they do). So, stick with "Yes, God knows the future infallibly/accurately" then press for a view of the future--apart from omniscience--that's partly open. In that case, prophecies that are partially fulfilled, or fulfilled in ways that don't seem to fit the prophecy (apart from the possibility that we may simply not know enough of history) may be considered either contingent prophecies or God exercising his freedom the relax or increase blessing or punishment in response to circumstances at the time (which of course we don't know as God does).
I guess I try to start with the bigger picture of God, his purposes for us and the world, the nature of our personal and reciprocally loving relationship, try to conclude (from Scripture and other sources) what has to be true about God and the world for these things to be, and THEN deal with the particulars of prophecy fulfillment. If all my questions aren't answered perfectly at this lower level, so be it. Those aren't the defining issues I don't think.
Now, I predict that someone will respond to this by say: "Tom, our understanding of prophecy fulfillment IS a defining issue because it forms the basis of our trust in God. If God predicts x, and something other than x happens, we can't trust God." Let me say, if you are constitutionally incapable of trusting in a God who knows some "maybe's" and has to deal with these "maybe's" in the fulfilling of his purposes (and prophecies), then by all means, don't abandon your trust in God. Toss the open view."
Tom | | Back to Top | | |
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Bobber
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Date Joined Jun 2004
Total Posts : 199
| Posted 8/9/2004 12:29 PM (GMT -6) | | quote:
Let me say, if you are constitutionally incapable of trusting in a God who knows some "maybe's" and has to deal with these "maybe's" in the fulfilling of his purposes (and prophecies), then by all means, don't abandon your trust in God. Toss the open view."
I think the problem you're maybe not considering Tom is that God said about prophets and the words they state that if they are in error they were not sent from God. Also if they were wrong in Old Testament Israel the punishment was death. [see Deuteronomy 18:20-22] | | Back to Top | | |
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Tom
Registered Member
Date Joined Jul 2001
Total Posts : 10353
| Posted 8/9/2004 2:31 PM (GMT -6) | | quote:
Originally posted by Bobber
quote:
Let me say, if you are constitutionally incapable of trusting in a God who knows some "maybe's" and has to deal with these "maybe's" in the fulfilling of his purposes (and prophecies), then by all means, don't abandon your trust in God. Toss the open view."
I think the problem you're maybe not considering Tom is that God said about prophets and the words they state that if they are in error they were not sent from God. Also if they were wrong in Old Testament Israel the punishment was death. [see Deuteronomy 18:20-22]
See? I told ya.
Tom | | Back to Top | | |
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Lee Merrill
booted
Date Joined Jun 2001
Total Posts : 723
| Posted 8/9/2004 4:32 PM (GMT -6) | | quote:
SOC: A command to obey PROVES the possibility that the creature can choose EITHER way. You don't command robots or computer programs to obey you, you program them to carry out tasks.
Would you command a blind man to look at something?
Isaiah 42:18 Hear, you deaf; look, you blind, and see!
Mark 7:34 He looked up to heaven and with a deep sigh said to him, "Ephphatha!" (which means, "Be opened!").
quote:
Tom: If God predicts x, and something other than x happens, we can't trust God.
Bobber: I think the problem you're maybe not considering Tom is that God said about prophets and the words they state that if they are in error they were not sent from God. Also if they were wrong in Old Testament Israel the punishment was death.
Bobber's response here is different! Why isn't God a false prophet, by his own definition? And why shouldn't the true prophets have been stoned when they missed it? Whether we should trust God is a different issue. If God can fail, I think the issue becomes how much we can trust him. But that's another topic…
quote:
FIH: what did you hope to accomplish by such a thread? Tiny and juvenile.
I admit that all the "unfulfilled prophecy" threads kind of got my dandruff up. Maybe I should have said "too small," like J.B. Phillips in his book title. But what is being proposed with the unfulfilled prophecy arguments is way beyond what J.B. Phillips was addressing…
What I hope to accomplish is this:
Proverbs 25:14 Like clouds and wind without rain is a man who boasts of gifts he does not give.
Or even king Ahab had made this conclusion:
1 Kings 20:11 The king of Israel answered, "Tell him: 'One who puts on his armor should not boast like one who takes it off.'"
Blessings,
Lee
==================================================
"Even now we seem to have dim glimpses into regions
from which we receive no word to bring away" (George MacDonald) | | Back to Top | | |
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