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Cody Lewis Oaks
Registered Member
Date Joined Nov 2004
Total Posts : 19
| Posted 11/30/2004 12:25 PM (GMT -6) |   | | open theism seems like a bunch of bull to me. Either God is sovereign or not. Simple rule of antithesis. | | Back to Top | | |
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God_Is_Truth
Registered Member
Date Joined Nov 2003
Total Posts : 33
| Posted 11/30/2004 12:33 PM (GMT -6) | | | open theism affirms the sovereignty of God. | | Back to Top | | |
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Cody Lewis Oaks
Registered Member
Date Joined Nov 2004
Total Posts : 19
| Posted 11/30/2004 1:05 PM (GMT -6) | | | "Changes his mind?" As if he made a mistake? I think we deal with contingincies, God does not. I'll take redemptive history. I am very sorry if my tone is harsh, but open-theism is a false doctrine. | | Back to Top | | |
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spenlake
Registered Member
Date Joined Jan 2004
Total Posts : 1050
| Posted 11/30/2004 1:26 PM (GMT -6) | | quote:
Originally posted by Cody Lewis Oaks
open theism seems like a bunch of bull to me. Either God is sovereign or not. Simple rule of antithesis.
I am not a proponent of Open Theism but I have friends who are, sincerely. Calling it a "bunch of bull" seems arrogant and improper of one who is believing the truth. If you believe in the sovereignty of God as I do, then the only reason that you are not believing error is because God is helping you in spite of your tendancies to wander. I think that 2 Timothy 2:24 has something to say regarding how to approach those whom you believe to be in error, " The Lord’s bond-servant must not be quarrelsome, but be kind to all, able to teach, patient when wronged, with gentleness correcting those who are in opposition, if perhaps God may grant them repentance leading to the knowledge of the truth, and they may come to their senses and escape from the snare of the devil, having been held captive by him to do his will." If Open View is flawed and God has given you the grace and skill to lead them to truth through the authority of scriptures, I would be grateful. Bursting in and calling it a bunch of bull seems out of character somehow.
Spen Lake
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Cody Lewis Oaks
Registered Member
Date Joined Nov 2004
Total Posts : 19
| Posted 11/30/2004 1:55 PM (GMT -6) | | | well, i already apologized for my tone, so no need to revisit that, as far as the examples rattled of in an attempt to fortify the open-view, do you not find it plausible that there is such a thing as god's moral will(which you can break all day long) and is will for mankind to be seperate? God dialogues with us, and he did more intimately in the old testament to allow us to be a part of his will by using us as means. If God doesn't know what my possible future outcome will be, than I'm converting to islam, as least allah knows all. of course i know this is not the case. If some things exist as possibilites as god that he doesn't know about, then i shant pray anymore, because we will be deadlocked in a stare trying to figure out together what the hell to make of this planet. | | Back to Top | | |
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God_Is_Truth
Registered Member
Date Joined Nov 2003
Total Posts : 33
| Posted 11/30/2004 2:10 PM (GMT -6) | | quote:
Originally posted by Cody Lewis Oaks
"Changes his mind?" As if he made a mistake? I think we deal with contingincies, God does not. I'll take redemptive history. I am very sorry if my tone is harsh, but open-theism is a false doctrine.
why does everyone always assume that changing one's mind means one made a mistake? | | Back to Top | | |
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the Wicker Man
Registered Member
Date Joined Sep 2004
Total Posts : 73
| Posted 11/30/2004 2:17 PM (GMT -6) | | quote:
Originally posted by God_Is_Truth
quote:
Originally posted by Cody Lewis Oaks
"Changes his mind?" As if he made a mistake? I think we deal with contingincies, God does not. I'll take redemptive history. I am very sorry if my tone is harsh, but open-theism is a false doctrine.
why does everyone always assume that changing one's mind means one made a mistake?
Calvinists equate what we deem good and powerful, as "weak" when it's applied to God.
So if being flexible is a strength to us, it's a "weakness" to God.
If being resourceful and creative and dynamic is a strength to us, it's a "weakness" to God.
If we listen to input from others before we make a decision, that's deemed smart for us, but "weak" when God does it.
If we think that a relationship requires give and take on both sides, that's seen as a "weakness" when applied to God.
If it takes real power and genius to get a bunch of free will agents to do your will here, they deem that "weak" if applied to God. Their concept of God is that of ineptness, He can't do anything unless He controls every little aspect of it.
We think of control freaks as an aberration, they think of God as a control freak.
We deem delegation as the mark of an intelligent leader, they deem delegation as a "weakness" when applied to God.
The truth is, since we are not perfect beings, any interface between God and us HAS TO BE flexible. You can statically link two inferfaces only if neither will EVER change. And humans are changeable.
uromancer to the stars | | Back to Top | | |
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Cody Lewis Oaks
Registered Member
Date Joined Nov 2004
Total Posts : 19
| Posted 11/30/2004 2:25 PM (GMT -6) | | So, God knows all future possible outcomes, but yet but yet he doesn't know what will happen because it hasn't happened yet? Then how does he choose whether or not he wants to know the future outcome or not, if he knows it sometimes as this view suggests? When it suits his purposes? Cmon, is God bound by time, or isn't he? You cant have your cake and eat it too here. except....
I can because the god I know has a plan. Oh the the depth of the riches of the wisdom of God! How unsearchable his judgements, who has known the mind of the lord?
God in the open view, assumes that God is bound by time to figure things out someitmes, and since he is still sovereign, not bound by time when he chooses. Calvinism is not fatal. It is much more freeing to know that God KNOWS our hearts and what we will decide, and doesn't have to play catch-up as it were all of a sudden.
"Yet, before the twins were born or had done anything good or bad-in order that God's purpose in election might stand:not by works but by him who calls-she was told, "the older will serve the younger" As it is written:"Jacob I loved, but Esau I hated." Rom 9:11-13 | | Back to Top | | |
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Cody Lewis Oaks
Registered Member
Date Joined Nov 2004
Total Posts : 19
| Posted 11/30/2004 2:35 PM (GMT -6) | | | Of course it's seen as weakness! It is! Humans are dealing with finite resources. What is ingenuity for us is only because God had thought of that idea before man had. For God to need to seek counsel among his creation is weakness. He needn't do it. He is infinite and we are finite. You are but a pot in the hands of the potter, as he molds you as he sees fit. you may have some characteristics, and nuances (personality) that seperates you from plant and animal, but do you think God in his creative power cannot mold his creation into what he desires? | | Back to Top | | |
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the Wicker Man
Registered Member
Date Joined Sep 2004
Total Posts : 73
| Posted 11/30/2004 2:37 PM (GMT -6) | | quote:
Originally posted by Cody Lewis Oaks
So, God knows all future possible outcomes, but yet but yet he doesn't know what will happen because it hasn't happened yet? Then how does he choose whether or not he wants to know the future outcome or not, if he knows it sometimes as this view suggests? When it suits his purposes? Cmon, is God bound by time, or isn't he? You cant have your cake and eat it too here. except....
Tomorrow doesn't exist yet. So nothing about tomorrow is actual, only possible.
quote:
I can because the god I know has a plan.
I have plans too. And I don't need total, comprehensive knowlege of the future in order to carry them out.
quote:
God in the open view, assumes that God is bound by time to figure things out someitmes, and since he is still sovereign, not bound by time when he chooses.
Time is not a "bind", it's just the sequence of events. Before creation, there was just God. Then He created everything. That's sequence of events. Just God---->God and creation
Are you saying all of creation is co-eternal with God? No?
Then you believe in a sequence that even God experiences.
quote:
Calvinism is not fatal. It is much more freeing to know that God KNOWS our hearts and what we will decide, and doesn't have to play catch-up as it were all of a sudden.
"play catch-up as it were all of a sudden" is just emotional language, not an argument at all. Where's your "A" material?
quote:
"Yet, before the twins were born or had done anything good or bad-in order that God's purpose in election might stand:not by works but by him who calls-she was told, "the older will serve the younger" As it is written:"Jacob I loved, but Esau I hated." Rom 9:11-13
Paul is quoting the Old Testament there:
Genesis 25:23 The LORD said to her,
"Two nations are in your womb;
And two peoples will be separated from your body;
And one people shall be stronger than the other;
And the older shall serve the younger."
God's sovereign election of two groups of people.
The first group were an empty vessel created when God chose Abraham and His descendants, most of whom existed yet. Whosoever is born to you, Abraham, will be in the covenant I'm giving to you.
The second group were an empty vessel created when God elected all those in Jesus. Whosoever is born again into Jesus is placed into that vessel and becomes part of the "elect in Christ".
uromancer to the stars | | Back to Top | | |
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Cody Lewis Oaks
Registered Member
Date Joined Nov 2004
Total Posts : 19
| Posted 11/30/2004 3:10 PM (GMT -6) | | hmm... that doesn't seems to advance Paul's argument at all. He is dealing with God's election with Jacob and Esau as an illustration, and then comes back into his own day on verse 19 saying that one of you will say to me "Why should God still blame us? For who resists His will? Then Paul goes on to say "who are you o man that you should talk back to God" and so on.
Does a nation not comprise of individuals? Here's what boggles my mind-If God cannot see in the future because it's not a reality yet, but then has predetermined that somethings be- how can that be?
So if he had planned out that Jesus would die on the cross, how would he know if anyone would believe in His son,thus making it a wasted sacrifice. I would commend to you a good exegetical look at romans 11, where God doesn't just see to it that believers don't die, he sees to it that there are believers. | | Back to Top | | |
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the Wicker Man
Registered Member
Date Joined Sep 2004
Total Posts : 73
| Posted 11/30/2004 3:17 PM (GMT -6) | | quote:
Originally posted by Cody Lewis Oaks
hmm... that doesn't seems to advance Paul's argument at all. He is dealing with God's election with Jacob and Esau as an illustration, and then comes back into his own day on verse 19 saying that one of you will say to me "Why should God still blame us? For who resists His will? Then Paul goes on to say "who are you o man that you should talk back to God" and so on.
Read Romans 9, Paul is talking about his countrymen, the Jews. Then he makes a case about the Gentiles. Jews, Gentiles, two groups of people represented by Jacob and Esau, "two nations are in your womb".
quote:
Does a nation not comprise of individuals? Here's what boggles my mind-If God cannot see in the future because it's not a reality yet, but then has predetermined that somethings be- how can that be?
I have determined that my daughters will get the best education I can get them and I can't "see" into the future. Is it necessary?
God determines some things that He will do in the future. When the future comes, He is powerful enough to carry those out.
Isaiah 48:3
"I declared the former things long ago
And they went forth from My mouth, and I proclaimed them.
Suddenly I acted, and they came to pass."
He declares what He's going to do, when the time comes, He does it.
Much of the future is not determined. Some possibilites are actualized, others aren't.
quote:
So if he had planned out that Jesus would die on the cross, how would he know if anyone would believe in His son,thus making it a wasted sacrifice.
This is a cool question, imho. It made me think.
When Jesus came, there had already been many people who had faith that God would some day send their redeemer.
Job 19:25 "As for me, I know that my Redeemer lives,
And at the last He will take His stand on the earth."
Even before God sent Jesus, He knew all these people had already had salvic faith in the coming redeemer.
uromancer to the stars | | Back to Top | | |
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Cody Lewis Oaks
Registered Member
Date Joined Nov 2004
Total Posts : 19
| Posted 11/30/2004 3:25 PM (GMT -6) | | If God chose the jews as his people, why would he not do it for Christ? "i will call them my people who are not my people..."
This God you speak of sure sounds like he could use some assistance...perhaps a wife? | | Back to Top | | |
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Alan Rhoda
Registered Member
Date Joined May 2002
Total Posts : 680
| Posted 11/30/2004 3:31 PM (GMT -6) | | Cody,
Disagree with open theism if you want to, but please take the time to understand what open theists affirm before you conclude dismissively that it is all a "bunch of bull". The fact is, your take on open theism is little more than a tissue of straw men.
Cody: Open theism seems like a bunch of bull to me. Either God is sovereign or not. Simple rule of antithesis.
Alan: You assume that sovereignty entails exhaustive divine control and that, therefore, open theism lessens God's sovereignty by denying exhaustive divine control. But, in fact, open theism affirms God's sovereignty just as much as Calvinism. For open theists, God has exactly as much control over events as He wants to have. If He chooses to create a world in which some of His creates have real say-so, that is His sovereign choice to do so. The issue being debated is not whether God is sovereign, but whether He can and, if so, has sovereignly willed that the future be partly open.
Cody: "Changes his mind?" As if he made a mistake? I think we deal with contingencies, God does not.
Alan: With due respect for JEE, God_Is_Truth, and the Wicker Man, open theism does not imply that God literally changes his mind. I've explained before on this board that the infinitely intelligent God of open theism can perfectly anticipates all possibilities that He sovereignly allows and can therefore formulate conditional resolutions for each possibility at the outset. As infinitely intelligent, there is no new information that God could receive that he wouldn't have already anticipated and planned for, so there's actually no room in open theism for a literal "changing" of God's mind. Instead what we have is a changing of God's standing response due to a change in conditions. By God's standing response I mean the response dictated by those conditional resolutions whose conditions are presently fulfilled.
For example, suppose that God has conditionally resolved that if the Ninevites do not repent then they will be judged. At the time Jonah begins preaching to them, they have not yet repented, so God's standing response to the Ninevites is judgment. But after the Ninevites do repent that conditional resolution is no longer in force. Instead, a new conditional resolution--that if the Ninevites repent, then God will show mercy--is in force because the requisite condition is not fulfilled.
In summary, then, the God of open theism does not literally "change" His mind, despite what some proponents of open theism have incautiously claimed. There is simply no conceivable reason why an infinitely intelligent God should ever have to literally "change" His mind as opposed to changing His standing responses in the light of changing circumstances.
Furthermore, open theism does not entail that God makes mistakes. To make a mistake is to believe something to be true, that turns out to be false. But the infinitely intelligent (and omniscient) God of open theism can never be in this position. The reason why it seems so to some is that they fail to properly characterize the state of God's beliefs if open theism is true. For example, if God believes that the Ninevites will, with probability 0.6, repent, then He doesn't believe that they will repent; rather, he believes that they will probably repent. If it should turn out that they do not repent, that does not falsify God's belief any more than believing that someone will probably not win the lottery is falsified by their winning--when the improbable happens that does not imply that it wasn't improbable.
Cody: If God doesn't know what my possible future outcome will be, than I'm converting to islam, as least allah knows all.
Alan: Couple points here. First, open theism does affirm that God knows your possible future outcomes, what it denies is that God can know that you definitely will do something if it is not definite that you will do it. That's not an outlandish thing to say. In fact, Jonathan Edwards would agree with open theists on that point. The difference is that open theists believe, as Edwards did not, that it is possible, and indeed actual, that the future not be exhaustively definite.
Second, open theism does affirm that God knows all. (Note: there are some open theists who do compromise God's omniscience, but as far as I can tell they are a distinct minority.) For God to know all is for Him to know all and only truths. Open theists affirm this. Where they disagree with the dominant tradition is in rejecting the idea that the future can be wholly and accurately described in terms of truths about what "will" and "will not" happen. Instead, open theists insists, there are also truths about what "might and might not" happen. God knows the future perfectly because He knows of every possible future state of affairs whether it "will", "will not", or "might and might not" happen.
Hope that clarifies. Note that I have not at all argued here either for or against open theism. I have simply explained what it is that (most) open theists believe. If you still don't find the view plausible, fine. But don't dismiss the view because you've confused it with a straw man that compromises God's sovereignty or omniscience or imputes mistakes to God. Open theism has none of those consequences and therefore shouldn't be rejected for such reasons.
Regards,
Alan | | Back to Top | | |
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Cody Lewis Oaks
Registered Member
Date Joined Nov 2004
Total Posts : 19
| Posted 11/30/2004 3:34 PM (GMT -6) | | | Wow, that would be quite a gamble for god to send his son to a gruesome death, on a presupposition that naturally sinful man would accept grace. | | Back to Top | | |
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Cody Lewis Oaks
Registered Member
Date Joined Nov 2004
Total Posts : 19
| Posted 11/30/2004 3:45 PM (GMT -6) | | | That's my point exactly. God knew there would be believers because he saw to it that it should happen. You do not look upon a grotesque display of torture, and out of your own properties, conclude that you are willing to die for that corpse. Grace must find you, and God grants us the act of faith to respond. That is saving faith. | | Back to Top | | |
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