 |
| 
Bonerges
Registered Member
Date Joined Sep 2004
Total Posts : 8
| Posted 9/23/2004 6:05 PM (GMT -6) |   | | When one considers the OVT position (one I might say is very strong in many ways) it seems to have a flaw from the long standing tradition of "personal significance." Especially from the standpoint of the "plan of God." For instance, does OVT imply that until the chance meeting of a sperm and egg we where not on the mind of God? Does the song that says "When he was on the cross, I was on his mind" really make since to a OVT disciple? Does the fact that presently there are over 6 billion people on the face of the earth and billions before this time tell us that most of the population was not "before the mind of God" until conception? This seems to be a delimma for OVT unless of course God somehow "predetermined" every human being that will ever be conceived. But if he didn't what does this say about the worth of a life in the plan of God? From a personal level this kills in me a long held belief that God loved me before I was ever born and He had a plan for my life on an individual basis. | | Back to Top | | |
 |
Bonerges
Registered Member
Date Joined Sep 2004
Total Posts : 8
| Posted 9/23/2004 6:25 PM (GMT -6) | | As a Calvinist would say, "It's not about you." (kidding)
"When He was on the cross, I was on his mind" remains true if we think of the atoning death of Christ as a provision, not as a penal substitution or sin-debt payment. In the OV, God certainly knew you would be a very real possibility, and He perfectly knew all the various possible choices you might make.
JEE wiz that was a fast reply! Now on to the response. JEE, here is where the entire book of "The Purpose Driven Life" should be thrown on the trash heap if what you say is true. Ultimately, most of the people in the world are "accidents" because we where only "possibilities" not "actualities." While, it may be true that it is "not about me" this remains a central concern for all of us who want to define OV as the great "existential fit" that we so gloriously proclaim it to be. For "love" to have wonder wrapped up in it does it not seem "significant" that it goes out to a person who was "planned" instead of just "happened?"
| | Back to Top | | |
|
JEE
Registered Member
Date Joined Jul 2004
Total Posts : 1466
| Posted 9/23/2004 6:49 PM (GMT -6) | | quote:
Originally posted by Bonerges
Ultimately, most of the people in the world are "accidents" because we where only "possibilities" not "actualities." While, it may be true that it is "not about me" this remains a central concern for all of us who want to define OV as the great "existential fit" that we so gloriously proclaim it to be. For "love" to have wonder wrapped up in it does it not seem "significant" that it goes out to a person who was "planned" instead of just "happened?"
I don't think it would be accurate to say that PEOPLE "just happened." We are all "fearfully and wonderfully made," as the Psalmist says. I love my 1-1/2-year-old daughter TONS, and I had just about nothing to do with her personhood. (Actually, my wife and I were trying to get pregnant, but other than that...)
quote:
JEE, here is where the entire book of "The Purpose Driven Life" should be thrown on the trash heap if what you say is true.
The Open View has never denied that God has a purpose for our lives, and that it is expressly revealed in Scripture; to wit, that we be conformed to the image of Christ. Though some parts of the PDL ought to be discarded (in my opinion), I think the basic idea still holds true in the Open View--God created us for a purpose, and we ought to be pursuing that purpose (transformation) with a sense of zeal and adventure.
It seems humanistic to think that babies that are conceived accidentally are somehow less significant than those whose conceptions are planned.
http://revivaltheology.net | | Back to Top | | |
|
JET
Registered Member
Date Joined Jun 2002
Total Posts : 397
| Posted 9/24/2004 1:45 AM (GMT -6) | | Hi Bonerges, this link may help:
http://www.christusvictorministries.org/gbfront/forum/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=2010
JET | | Back to Top | | |
|
Tom
Registered Member
Date Joined Jul 2001
Total Posts : 10353
| Posted 9/24/2004 1:51 AM (GMT -6) | | The thread that JET posted is a good one Bonerges. I think it really addresses your question. If you feel it doesn't, then hollar back. I like this issue too.
Tom | | Back to Top | | |
|
Bonerges
Registered Member
Date Joined Sep 2004
Total Posts : 8
| Posted 9/24/2004 11:44 AM (GMT -6) | | Thanks for the thread JET. I read the whole thing! It seems to deal realistically with the OVT delimma. People who have been "trained" by thousands of years of "personal significance" will have a hard time letting go of this aspect of embracing OVT. In fact, this is very hard for me and keeps me sitting on the fence, along with a few other issues like "substitutionary atonement." Fundamentally, I am thankful for the forthright nature of Doc's and TGB assessment of "personal significance." In a nutshell, we were really not in the mind of God in any "real" since but only in "theory." This my friends is not at all comforting (Remember, I represent a whole mess of people in Christiandom).
In fact, the fact that I was on God's heart in a truly "personal" way is what gives a since of meaning to my calling as a minister. The fact that I believe that Jesus died for "my" sins give strength to my life when I realize that it is only by grace that I am what I am. These, my brothers (and sisters) whom I admire deeply for the way you attempt to answer troubling realities with OVT still hold sway over my heart and millions of others. It is perhaps these kinds of "existential" issues of "what-Jesus-means-to-me" from the stand point of calling and significance that the more classical views refresh the soul.
But, of course, I am still listening to the powerful arguments that my OVT companions are attempting to answer. Please keep trying on this thread to wrestle with this issue. I believe it is the one, along with substitutionary atonement, that will give OVT problems with the majority of Christians.
Bonerges | | Back to Top | | |
|
Tom
Registered Member
Date Joined Jul 2001
Total Posts : 10353
| Posted 9/24/2004 2:38 PM (GMT -6) | | Bonerges-
Thanks for reminding us that this is an issue to be taken seriously. In what sense we were significant to God before we were born is an important issue.
Bonerges: Thanks for the thread JET. I read the whole thing! It seems to deal realistically with the OVT delimma.
Tom: I’m still not sure why this is a dilemma. I can understand the shock somebody who grew up believing that God had them determinately (so to speak) in mind from all eternity might feel when they’re told God had them contingently (so to speak) in mind from all eternity. But understood rightly, there's nothing of a dilemma here.
Bonerges: People who have been "trained" by thousands of years of "personal significance" will have a hard time letting go of this aspect of embracing OVT.
Tom: Why should they have to let go of believing they are personally significant to God if they embrace the OV?
Bonerges: In fact, this is very hard for me and keeps me sitting on the fence, along with a few other issues like "substitutionary atonement." Fundamentally, I am thankful for the forthright nature of Doc's and TGB assessment of "personal significance." In a nutshell, we were really not in the mind of God in any "real" since but only in "theory." This my friends is not at all comforting.
Tom: Then let’s hash over it a bit more. No need to sacrifice the comfort of being known by God if we don’t have to, right?
Now, I wouldn’t say that we weren't in the mind of God in any "real sense" but only in "theory." Maybe I’m misunderstanding you here. But there’s no need to think that possibilities aren’t as “real," as much "the case," as determined events are before they occur. Future necessities aren't more "real" than future contingencies. It’s not as if we were phantoms, somehow less defined, less "real" as an object of knowledge and concern than we would be were our upcoming existence determinate. To be in God’s mind as a contingent possibility is no less a real and significant object of knowledge than being determinate (at least I don’t think so). Perhaps the belief that our being “determined to be” gives us more significance than does our being “contingent” is itself a left-over of a blueprint deterministic worldview.
So let me ask. What is it really that you find so “comforting” about God’s knowing you would certainly be born as opposed to God’s knowing you might and might not be born? What significance is really being lost if the latter is in fact the case?
See, Bonerges, the idea that foreknowing the determinate future existence of individuals provides God a better basis upon which to love those individuals when they actually exist (as well as provides us a better basis upon which to believe we are significant to God) than does his foreknowing the future contingent existence of individuals provide a basis upon which to love us when we’re born seems to me to be an unsubstantiated assumption. But is it really true? Does such a belief really add significance to our lives? I don’t think so.
Think of it this way. My wife and I are expecting a child. We know the birth of this child is a contingent matter. The child might be born and might not be born. Something could happen and we could lose the baby. For the sake of argument, suppose the birth of our child was a determined matter and so certain to occur. Would you think parents who believe the arrival of their baby to be a determined event would love their baby more personally when he was actually born than would parents who believe the arrival of their baby to be a contingent event? I don’t think so. It’s “actual” people that God “actually” loves and “actually” gives significance to, and it’s our knowing this to be the case that grounds our own sense of self-worth and value, not some doctrine of exhaustively definite foreknowledge.
That’s how I see it at least.
Bonerges: In fact, the fact that I was on God's heart in a truly "personal" way is what gives a since of meaning to my calling as a minister. The fact that I believe that Jesus died for "my" sins give strength to my life when I realize that it is only by grace that I am what I am. These, my brothers (and sisters) whom I admire deeply for the way you attempt to answer troubling realities with OVT still hold sway over my heart and millions of others. It is perhaps these kinds of "existential" issues of "what-Jesus-means-to-me" from the stand point of calling and significance that the more classical views refresh the soul.
Tom: I totally appreciate your sense here. But consider, can I not argue in response that the OV amounts not to the belief that God “under-knows” the future, but that God “over-knows” the future? Not only did God foreknow as possibilities the actual sins I’ve committed (and will commit), but he also foreknew those possible sins I might have committed but didn’t. And Christ died for it ALL. So we could argue that Christ over-paid the debt! And who would argue that this is a less loving thing to do?
As I think too about what it means to be “personal” and engage in “personal” relationships, I can’t see that God’s foreknowing our existence as contingent undermines the personal nature of our relationship with him. Remember, it’s not a personal relationship until “persons” exist to make it so. So the idea that God’s foreknowing our existence as determinate is a more “personal” sort of foreknowledge than foreknowing our existence as contingent just doesn’t fly. In either case, it’s not “personal” by definition until we’re “persons” (which we are not until we exist—whether our existence was determined or contingent).
Blessings as you struggle along with this.
Tom | | Back to Top | | |
|
Bonerges
Registered Member
Date Joined Sep 2004
Total Posts : 8
| Posted 9/24/2004 3:55 PM (GMT -6) | | Oh, TGB you flushed me out into the light of my own convictions! I have never been a "determinate" thinker regarding the EDF doctrine. I have always embraced the "knowability," if you will Arminian brand, aspect of EDF. OV has simply challenged me to reconsider many of the "blueprint" aspects of classical theism (impassibility, timelessness, etc.)OV has won me in many arguments in several areas. However, my brand of EDF still grasps my heart with this issue of personal significance. Although, I do not believe in "timelessness" I do believe that some how God is above the aspects of "human time."
I know this makes me somewhat of a crystal ball gazer but it is here that I am truly a person "known" in the fullest since as more than a "possibility" but as a definite "future actuality." In this most ancient of Christian doctrines (the foreknowledge of God as "knowledge of future events")my fundamental belief in the theology of personal significance finds a great anchor of the soul. So in this belief "my" salvation was a true actuality before I was ever born! In this belief "who I would become" was already a "real" and "known history" in the mind of God. In this since I am not just a future "necessity" but a future actuality, as paradoxical as that sounds.
Now to answer one of your analogies about having a baby. You said that you and your wife are expecting a baby and that there was a correlation between the "birth" of the baby the "actuality" of that baby. However, this analogy seems to me to be flawed on one hand but on another makes the point I am making above. It is flawed in that the baby is already an "actual" baby before it is "born" even if it was not born! It makes my point in that a "baby in the womb" corresponds to a "future actuality" in the mind of an all-knowing God.
As far as God over-knowing and over-paying through the atonement that is a point well taken. However, back to my crystal ball theology I find that Jesus truly died for my possible and actual sins at the Cross and that he took "my" deserved place on that Tree. In this since "substitution" takes on real meaning.
Bonerges | | Back to Top | | |
|
JEE
Registered Member
Date Joined Jul 2004
Total Posts : 1466
| Posted 9/24/2004 5:04 PM (GMT -6) | | quote:
Originally posted by Bonerges
I know this makes me somewhat of a crystal ball gazer but it is here that I am truly a person "known" in the fullest since as more than a "possibility" but as a definite "future actuality."
Did God "know" Adam (as an actuality) before He created him? I honestly don't see how. That which is future is by definition possible and not yet actual.
quote:
In this most ancient of Christian doctrines (the foreknowledge of God as "knowledge of future events")my fundamental belief in the theology of personal significance finds a great anchor of the soul. So in this belief "my" salvation was a true actuality before I was ever born! In this belief "who I would become" was already a "real" and "known history" in the mind of God. In this since I am not just a future "necessity" but a future actuality, as paradoxical as that sounds.
Okay, but that really amounts to determinism, whether you want to admit it or not. If every last detail of the future was already "written in stone" before God ever created, then it was by definition predetermined in every last detail. All events in history could be no other way than precisely how God perfectly foreknew it would be. And as the ultimate cause of creation, he is entirely responsible for creating a world that He KNEW could only turn out ONE WAY.
quote:
Now to answer one of your analogies about having a baby. You said that you and your wife are expecting a baby and that there was a correlation between the "birth" of the baby the "actuality" of that baby. However, this analogy seems to me to be flawed on one hand but on another makes the point I am making above. It is flawed in that the baby is already an "actual" baby before it is "born" even if it was not born! It makes my point in that a "baby in the womb" corresponds to a "future actuality" in the mind of an all-knowing God.
But the baby has not been in the womb since all eternity.
quote:
As far as God over-knowing and over-paying through the atonement that is a point well taken. However, back to my crystal ball theology I find that Jesus truly died for my possible and actual sins at the Cross and that he took "my" deserved place on that Tree. In this since "substitution" takes on real meaning.
I submit that the scriptural conception of Christ's substitionary death for us was not a quid pro quo, credit/debit type of transaction at all. I submit that the scriptural conception of His atoning death was that it was an OFFER, a potential reconciliation of MAN to God (not God to man). Only those who by repentance and faith enter into (appropriate) the benefits of the atonement are thereby reconciled to God, in actuality. E.g., "IF we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and cleanse us from all unrighteousness."
Christ's work of atonement is perfectly meaningful in light of this theory (which is basically the same theory promoted by most classical Arminians as well).
(Pardon the interruption, but I felt I had to jump in on this excellent line of discussion).
Thanks,
John
http://revivaltheology.net | | Back to Top | | |
|
Tom
Registered Member
Date Joined Jul 2001
Total Posts : 10353
| Posted 9/25/2004 2:03 AM (GMT -6) | | Bonerges-
Thanks for the clarification.
Let me tell you why I think your Arminian quassi-time-travel view cannot provide you the basis for personal significance you think it does over and against the open view. In the open view, the sort of significance I think you’re talking about our possessing is based upon our “actually” existing. We’re born and God THEN “responds” by taking us up into his purposes and setting his affections and love on us.
Now, in your view you only THINK that God is taking us up into his purposes and setting his affections on us BEFORE we’re born and you think this grounds your significance to God. But even in your view this cannot be. In your view, just as in the open view, God “gets” his information about you by whatever sort of time-travel or time-relation you suppose puts him at the scene of our ACTUALLY existing. So in the end, in your view God’s taking us up into his purposes and setting his affections on us are still a “response” to our ACTUAL existence precisely as in the open view. Sure, you add the further claim that God then takes this knowledge of us (“gotten” from our actual existence) and transports it so to speak to all points in time prior to our actually existing. The sense of security and significance this gives you, I suggest, is a false sense of security. It still remains the case that we don’t become significant to God in the personal sense you’re arguing until we’re actually born (or conceived). Suggesting that our personal significance pre-dates our personal existence doesn’t say or mean much since you admit that the former is grounded (for God and for us) in the latter, in spite of the fact that God is able to transport his knowledge of our actual existence to a time prior to our actually existing. Even in your view it’s God’s response to our actuality that grounds our personal significance and not how that knowledge relates to time.
Bonerges, you’re an open theist on this. You just believe in pre-recorded open theism (as do all classical Arminianists).
In holding to belief that God is above or outside of time, you also have the impossible task of explaining providence in terms of such divine knowledge. Here’s the problem: How does God make use of knowledge “gained from actual events” via quasi-temporal relation to those events in providential ways? That is, how can knowledge of an event that has already happened (which is how you’re saying God gets his information about evenets--from the actual events themselves) provide God a basis upon which he can THEN act to bring about, change, or otherwise make use of these same events? The answer is God can’t. You can't change what is actual. If God gets his knowledge of the future from the ACTUAL events (by whatever means), then not even God can use THIS knowledge as a basis upon which to act WITH RESPECT TO THESE events. The knowledge comes to him too late, logically speaking, to be of any help. So in addition to not really providing you a better basis than the open view for believing in your personal significance to God, your view is also providentially useless to God. God can never DO anything with the knowledge he gains in your view.
Tom | | Back to Top | | |
|
Bonerges
Registered Member
Date Joined Sep 2004
Total Posts : 8
| Posted 9/25/2004 3:40 AM (GMT -6) | | To JEE and TGB
I have noticed that both of you represent the pillars of the community on CVM. Your arguments and insights are always helpful when I have surfed the site. Thank you for the commitment you make to this and look forward to talking with you more often about issues as they arise.
Now about what both of you have addressed. Could "pre-recorded" knowledge be limited to the "person/personality" of every human being since we are the only ones in the entire created order that have been given the full blessing (besides angels of course) of "being made in the image and likeness of God." What I mean is that God some how nows us as "individuals" before we where ever born (not in the Mormon way of course) and that he has "future knowledge" in this area much like he has of the incarnation and redemption that comes through Jesus. This causes problems I am sure with "actuality" issues but it maintains the aspect of individuals being in the plan of God in real ways. Could it be that since human beings have ontological divine connections (imago dei) that we are in some since in the "womb of God" in one since before we where ever born in the actual since? This would maintain the "significance" issue I have raised in the area of redemption and personality. If, for instance, Jesus was "the Lamb of God slain from the foundation of the world" can it not be true that "who we are" as persons was in some way connected to that slaying of the Lamb?
Bonerges | | Back to Top | | |
|
barryatk
Registered Member
Date Joined Jun 2004
Total Posts : 101
| Posted 9/25/2004 6:13 AM (GMT -6) | |
quote:
Originally posted by Bonerges
To JEE and TGB
I have noticed that both of you represent the pillars of the community on CVM. Your arguments and insights are always helpful when I have surfed the site. Thank you for the commitment you make to this and look forward to talking with you more often about issues as they arise.
Now about what both of you have addressed. Could "pre-recorded" knowledge be limited to the "person/personality" of every human being since we are the only ones in the entire created order that have been given the full blessing (besides angels of course) of "being made in the image and likeness of God." What I mean is that God some how nows us as "individuals" before we where ever born (not in the Mormon way of course) and that he has "future knowledge" in this area much like he has of the incarnation and redemption that comes through Jesus. This causes problems I am sure with "actuality" issues but it maintains the aspect of individuals being in the plan of God in real ways. Could it be that since human beings have ontological divine connections (imago dei) that we are in some since in the "womb of God" in one since before we where ever born in the actual since? This would maintain the "significance" issue I have raised in the area of redemption and personality. If, for instance, Jesus was "the Lamb of God slain from the foundation of the world" can it not be true that "who we are" as persons was in some way connected to that slaying of the Lamb?
Bonerges
Hey All! I too am new to this OVT stuff. I too struggle with significance issues as they relate to OVT. I mostly like this OVT when it comes to understanding suffering. For years I have squirmed in my pew as I heard so many pastors say that the sin, sickness, and poverty we face are all God's Will. My older son has seemed to soak this in and it wreaks havoc on his spiritual life. SO, I'm asking if you can tell how things are different with us, the suffering, in the OVT?
Have you not also heard many proclaim that all our experiences are "filtered thruogh the fingers of our loving God"?
It seems so ingrained that God stands outside of time and looks at it with perfect clarity from past or future.
Barry | | Back to Top | | |
|
Tom
Registered Member
Date Joined Jul 2001
Total Posts : 10353
| Posted 9/25/2004 6:42 AM (GMT -6) | | Bonerges: Could "pre-recorded" knowledge be limited to the "person/personality" of every human being since we are the only ones in the entire created order that have been given the full blessing (besides angels of course) of "being made in the image and likeness of God." What I mean is that God some how nows us as "individuals" before we where ever born (not in the Mormon way of course) and that he has "future knowledge" in this area much like he has of the incarnation and redemption that comes through Jesus. This causes problems I am sure with "actuality" issues but it maintains the aspect of individuals being in the plan of God in real ways. Could it be that since human beings have ontological divine connections (imago dei) that we are in some since in the "womb of God" in one since before we where ever born in the actual since? This would maintain the "significance" issue I have raised in the area of redemption and personality. If, for instance, Jesus was "the Lamb of God slain from the foundation of the world" can it not be true that "who we are" as persons was in some way connected to that slaying of the Lamb?
Tom: I’m confused now. First you argued that God gets his knowledge that we “will” exist FROM (his being able to relate atemporally to) our actually existing. Now you seem to be saying God gets his knowledge that we “will” exist from himself unrelated to our actual existence. Which is it? Either God gets his knowledge that we “will” exist from our actual existence via some atemporal relation to the world (i.e., a kind of simultaneous relating to all points in time along our timeline) as you argued two posts ago, OR God gets his knowledge that we “will” exist from determining (in himself) that we will exist as you seem to be suggesting now.
The difference is that in the former (the open and Arminian views) God gets his knowledge of the world FROM the world so that God’s knowledge of the world is a response of sorts TO the world, whereas in the latter (Calvinism) God gets his knowledge of the world from knowing his own will, or knowing what he’s determined to bring about, so that the world’s existence is a response of sorts TO God. If God knows eternally that I “will” exist, then he can know this either by a) having determined unconditionally to bring it about that I will exist, or b) having the sort of simultaneous relation to all dimensions of time you suggest a couple posts ago. But in terms of our personal significance to God, (b) reduces down to the open view; that is, God gets his knowledge of the world FROM the actual world and so our significance comes from believing that God “actually” loves the “actual” us and takes us up into his purposes. But it doesn’t seem that you are a determinist, so (a) won’t work for you either. Not sure where you can go.
Still, I don’t see how it’s being true before I was actually born that “Tom might and might not exist” undermines God’s love or purposes for me when I’m born. Since my significance and sense of worth and value to God comes from God’s ACTUAL attitude about the ACTUAL me, I don’t see that I need it also to be true that it was true before I was born that “Tom will exist.”
Here’s another point that might help you see that our significance to God does not require that prior to our actually existing our existence be other than historically contingent. Most of us (open, determinist, Arminian, whatever) believe God’s creation of the world was a FREE choice God made, a choice God could have NOT made. So at some logical point, or point in time, prior to God’s determining to create at all, it was true that Adam, Eve…and ALL of us…“might and might not” exist, our existing at all was ultimately contingent upon God’s choice to create at all. So our significance to God cannot be in the necessity of our existence.
Is it not enough for you, Bonerges, to find your sense of personal significance and value to God in God’s actually loving and choosing you NOW that you actually exist? You can’t even yet make sense of a theory of HOW it is that your personal significance to God can be based in any OTHER fact, so HOW does believing about yourself what you can’t make sense of establish your personal significance to God? Why not simply rest in God’s actually loving the actual YOU? In fact, could I not argue that insisting that we be eternally personally significant to God is a form of pride? An overestimation of our own importance? Isn’t it the case that ultimately it is God alone who is eternally significant to God? If so, then it follows that we BECOME important and valuable to God at some point in time. And once you concede THIS, what reason can there be for arguing that our sense of personal significance and value to God requires that we “become” significant to God before WE actually “become” at all, i.e., before we exist at all? I just don’t see why your sense of personal significance requires this.
Tom | | Back to Top | | |
|
Bonerges
Registered Member
Date Joined Sep 2004
Total Posts : 8
| Posted 9/25/2004 8:33 AM (GMT -6) | | Tom
Good job! I wish my mind was as clear and as sure as yours. However, because of my preconditioning regarding Arminian EDF I am trying to "merge" both OV and Arminian concepts so I do not have to let go of the belief that I was in the mind and heart of God before I was ever born.
Thank you for answering me the way you have but I would like you to address the convergence of two passages of Scripture regarding God's knowledge of me before I was born (and for that matter everyone else). I know that I am wrestling with this conceptually but I have a greater since of conviction than my posts reveal. My last "confused" post was simply my attempt to find a way to converge or merge OV with Arminian concepts.
Now the passages:
Revelation 13:8 - and all who dwell on earth will worship it, everyone whose name has not been written before the foundation of the world in the book of life of the Lamb that was slain. ESV
Revelation 13:8 - All inhabitants of the earth will worship the beast-all whose names have not been written in the book of life belonging to the Lamb that was slain from the creation of the world. NIV
Jeremiah 1:5 - "Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, before you were born I set you apart; I appointed you as a prophet to the nations." NIV
Now Tom here is where we discuss the Scriptural foundation for my beliefs, albeit haltingly. I find in these two passages a solid "witness" to my beliefs. Whether Rev 13:8 is translated in the ESV or the NIV something is said as to the specific aspect of God's knowledge of a person's "activity" (Jesus Christ) or the real individuality of persons written by "name" in the book of life. Either way I find in these passages Scriptural support for God knowing me before I was conceived.
Jeremiah (and I know Boyd's view of this as Jeremiah being a special person and a "determined" soul) was in the mind of God as an "future actuality" before he was "formed in the womb." God said to him, "Before you where ever thought of on a human level I already had plans for you; I already picked you; I even knew you."
Discuss with me if you will your understanding of these two important passages from an OV view.
Bonerges
PS - Tom I sent you an email about God's attributes.
| | Back to Top | | |
|
Tom
Registered Member
Date Joined Jul 2001
Total Posts : 10353
| Posted 9/26/2004 1:00 PM (GMT -6) | | Bonerges-
We spent some time discussing the passages you mentioned in the past.
I don’t see a problem in these passages for the OV, including Jer 1.5, which doesn’t say God knew Jeremiah eternally, before he was conceived. Seems to me God’s knowing and choosing follow conception but precede birth. “Before I formed you” doesn’t assume a long-term pre-conception knowing. You know how in Hebrew an idea is often repeated and explain in parallel form? Here it seems to me that “before you were born” explains “before I formed you in the womb,” that is “before your formation was finished I chose you.” Likewise, “I set you apart” and “I knew you” are parallel. The second line doesn’t introduce new material. It repeats and explains the first bit. So, all Jeremiah is saying is that before he was born God chose him, not at all an impossible notion for the open view.
quote:
Whether Rev 13:8 is translated in the ESV or the NIV something is said as to the specific aspect of God's knowledge of a person's "activity" (Jesus Christ) or the real individuality of persons written by "name" in the book of life. Either way I find in these passages Scriptural support for God knowing me before I was conceived.
We talked about these some time ago. You can find some info here:
http://www.gregboyd.org/gbfront/forum/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=2839
http://www.gregboyd.org/gbfront/forum/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=312
quote:
PS - Tom I sent you an email about God's attributes.
Didn’t get anything. Maybe it’s just held up. I’ll check again.
Tom | | Back to Top | | |
|
Tom
Registered Member
Date Joined Jul 2001
Total Posts : 10353
| Posted 9/26/2004 1:29 PM (GMT -6) | | spenlake: Weak!
Tom: Nows THAT'S a strong response.
Tom | | Back to Top | | |
|
Bonerges
Registered Member
Date Joined Sep 2004
Total Posts : 8
| Posted 9/26/2004 5:14 PM (GMT -6) | | TGB or JEE
What are some good OV books on the Attributes of God? I already have "The Most Moved Mover" by Pinnock. Do you know of any others? | | Back to Top | | |
|
Tom
Registered Member
Date Joined Jul 2001
Total Posts : 10353
| Posted 9/26/2004 6:20 PM (GMT -6) | | To be honest, Bonerges, the sort of book you're talking about is still waiting to be written. Those who have written books treating the biblical grounds for the open view (Pinncok, Sanders, Boyd come to mind) do deal with God's attributes, but it may not be the sort of in-depth systematic treatment you're looking for.
A good bit of the traditional 'package' of attributes (you've mentioned some) has been challenged by Calvinists and Arminians.
I've enjoyed Terrance Fretheim. He's got great stuff on the Old Testament. I enjoy Jurgen Moltmann too. I'm trying to find time to finish Catherine LaCugna's book on the Trinity (God For Us). John Sanders is there to read too, but he has less straight-up stuff on God's attributes than Moltmann or LaCugna. I'm not an expert, but I'd say for the time being you'll have to find authors here and there who may or may not be open theists but who argue God's attributes in a way that gells with open theism.
Then again, it's a mistake to think that open theists have their own "open theist" understanding of everything (all the attributes, every passage of Scripture, etc.). As far as I'm able to tell, my fundamental views on several of the attributes is classical straight down the line (aseity for example). And on others (that God is personal/relational, temporal, omnibenevolent, omnipotent) is not uniquely open. Surprise! But that's the case. It's what open theists believe 'follows' from these attributes that takes them farther than, say, Arminians will go.
Even omniscience is not really defined any differently (by me and many openers I know) than I've heard it defined by well-received non-open theist evangelicals: God knows all truths and believes no falsehoods.
I think the questions that began me down the road to the open view had to do primarily with the attributres of "personhood." What does it mean to be a "person" or to be "personal"? What's required of persons "in relation." That meant that theological determinism was out of the question for me.
Gotta run,
Tom | | Back to Top | | |
|
Bonerges
Registered Member
Date Joined Sep 2004
Total Posts : 8
| Posted 9/27/2004 2:09 AM (GMT -6) | | TGB: I've enjoyed Terrance Fretheim. He's got great stuff on the Old Testament. I enjoy Jurgen Moltmann too.
Bonerges: Help me with some specifics.
TGB:I think the questions that began me down the road to the open view had to do primarily with the attributres of "personhood." What does it mean to be a "person" or to be "personal"? What's required of persons "in relation." That meant that theological determinism was out of the question for me.
Bonerges: Again help me with some specific references if you don't mind. (This by the way was my attempt to email you earlier). Since I will be teaching my congregation a series on the attributes I would like to get as much data in this vein as possible. I read earlier that you where in Virginia. I am in Maryland as a pastor. If you are close by perhaps we could have the real give-and-take of conversation. God has blessed me immensely in growing my congregation over the last 10 years (It is a pentecostal denominational congregation). We have seen it grow from 80 to 500 and it has been a wonderful ride! (Sorry for the "preacher/pastor" stuff but it is in my blood!). I saw that you are a missionary. Notice how "personal" I am getting with you now!
Bonerges
| | Back to Top | | |
|
Tom
Registered Member
Date Joined Jul 2001
Total Posts : 10353
| Posted 9/27/2004 7:12 AM (GMT -6) | | Bonerges-
Well, Fretheim is an Old Testament scholar and prof at Lutheran Seminay in Minnesota. His book The Suffering of God (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1984) helped. I've really enjoyed Vincent Brummer a lot too. His book Speaking of a Personal God: An Essay in Philosophical Theology (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992) really challenged me to begin thinking about what's involved in relationships that are "personal" (viz., that each side in the relationship has to be free to determine themselves with respect to the other).
So you're in Maryland. I was just in Bowie speaking at a church this past Sunday. My parents are both from Baltimore (not there now), but I pass through a lot. My wife and I enjoy D.C. and the Inner Harbor down in Baltimore whenever we can.
Try my hotmail: opentheist@hotmail.com
I'll leave this posted for a few days.
Would love to have lunch some day.
Tom | | Back to Top | | |
| Forum Information | Currently it is Monday, November 09, 2026 12:32 PM (GMT -6)
There are a total of 97,718 posts in 6,040 threads.
In the last 3 days there were 0 new threads and 0 reply posts. View Active Threads
|
Forum powered by dotNetBB v2.42EC SP3
dotNetBB © 2000-2026 |
|
|