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Alan Rhoda
Registered Member
Date Joined May 2002
Total Posts : 680
| Posted 11/30/2004 3:52 PM (GMT -6) |   | Cody: 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.
Alan: It would be quite a gamble if it were supposed that "naturally sinful men" are accepting grace without any divine assistance. But no Christian, open theist or not, supposes that. Couple points.
First, it is possible to be an open theist and a monergist wrt to salvation. True, most open theists are synergistic in their soteriology, but there's no logical entailment from open theism as such to soteriological synergism. If salvation is monergistic then there is no gamble on God's part.
Second, soteriological synergists (Arminians) believe that God draws men to him by giving them prevenient grace, which counteracts their natural sinful bent away from God and thereby makes a free response to God's grace possible. This, of course, doesn't by itself ensure that anyone will respond favorably to grace, but by inviting enough people and by drawing men to himself more or less strongly God could raise the probability that many would respond favorably as close to 1.0 as He wanted without irresistibly moving anyone's will. So it doesn't seem that open theism combined with a synergistic soteriology would inevitably lead to an unacceptably risky "gamble" on God's part.
God bless,
Alan | | Back to Top | | |
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Cody Lewis Oaks
Registered Member
Date Joined Nov 2004
Total Posts : 19
| Posted 11/30/2004 3:55 PM (GMT -6) | | Alan, I thank you for the time to spell that out in a clear manner. Well done.
I still must reject the open view on the basis of it's undermining God's sovreignty. To allow humans to have the say-so, is a scary thing. We are sinful, and God is infallible and holy. For God to get out of the driver seat, as it were, and let one of us grab the wheel, is not the character of God as I understand it. He may, by His graciousness, let us make decisions, or even give us free reign in a sense, but let us not assume that a decision that we made on our own is totally "free" and not influenced by the holy spirit, or just natural causation somehow, all the while, God is allowing us to be used as brushes on the canvus of the most beautiful work of art-redemptive history. | | Back to Top | | |
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Cody Lewis Oaks
Registered Member
Date Joined Nov 2004
Total Posts : 19
| Posted 11/30/2004 4:03 PM (GMT -6) | | | If God does not know future events, how can he use means to create a monergistic salvation? | | Back to Top | | |
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JEE
Registered Member
Date Joined Jul 2004
Total Posts : 1466
| Posted 11/30/2004 4:07 PM (GMT -6) | | Alan,
I think most of us know that "changing one's mind" is not meant strictly literally, ever. It is obviously a figure of speech for what you say, "changing his standing purpose," or, as I would say, "changing His decision in real-time, based on what others do."
Anyway, that is what most people mean when they say, "I changed my mind." They obviously don't mean they switched minds with someone else or got a totally different mental faculty than they had previously. 
But the fact remains that the Bible itself uses the figurative expression, "changed His mind" with reference to God. (NRSV, NASB, NIV).
Blessings to you, Alan. Good to hear from you. (I didn't mean that literally, of course). 
John
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Cody Lewis Oaks
Registered Member
Date Joined Nov 2004
Total Posts : 19
| Posted 11/30/2004 4:22 PM (GMT -6) | | Ok this is the fourth time on this board that an open-viewer has played the semantics game with the work soveriegnty, becuase you're trying to keep it for your own, while still destroying it. It is not sovereignty unless God is in complete control, and is in no way dependent on man. that is how i am defining it. so leave the semantics alone please.
john, i believe that man is depraved. he is sinful. that is why christ's sacrfice was neccessary if we were to have our wrath due to us, absorbed by christ. It is because of this that I cannote accept that man would or should be in control of making decisions on a divine mandate. God alone sets up the rulers, kings, and princes. To let a naturally sinful human ultimatley decide the future is unacceptable. | | Back to Top | | |
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Alan Rhoda
Registered Member
Date Joined May 2002
Total Posts : 680
| Posted 11/30/2004 4:25 PM (GMT -6) | | Thanks for the kind response, Cody.
Cody: I still must reject the open view on the basis of it's undermining God's sovereignty.
Alan: I don't see why you think the open view undermines God's sovereignty. If God sovereignly decides to let creature C freely choose whether to do action A or not-A, how would this make God any less sovereign? After all, it is God himself who has knowingly decided to give the creature this precise degree of say-so, and He has the sovereign right to revoke or further limit that degree of say-so any time He wants.
Cody: To allow humans to have the say-so, is a scary thing.
Alan: Not sure what you mean by "the" say-so. It's not like a human could ever take God's place as the one in charge. Any say-so we have is a delegated say-so from God. He sets the limits of our say-so as He wills, and we have no say-so about that.
But further, why would God's giving us some say-so be a "scary" thing? It might be scary if God gave us a whole lot of say-so that he couldn't revoke, or if He gave us say-so and couldn't perfectly anticipate and adapt to every possible course of action we might take. But open theists don't think of God like that. They don't think that our degree of say-so is either vast or inherently irrevocable, nor do they think we can do anything that could possibly catch God by surprise and upset His ultimate plans.
An analogy that Doc (Greg Boyd) has used may help. Imagine an infinitely intelligent chess master, one who can calculate the best response to any possible sequence of moves his opponent could make. Could such a chess master ever make a mistake, get caught off guard, or be in serious danger of losing? Of course not. He could never be out of control of the game, even though he does not control precisely which moves his opponent makes. Now the open theist thinks God exercises providence in somewhat similar fashion. He doesn't determine all the moves we make, but he perfectly anticipates every move we could possibly make and already has a perfect response in mind to each possibility. And since God determines exactly how much say-so we have, there is no possibility of the game every spinning "out of control" on the macrolevel, even if on the microlevel God does not control every move that's made.
Regards,
Alan | | Back to Top | | |
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JEE
Registered Member
Date Joined Jul 2004
Total Posts : 1466
| Posted 11/30/2004 4:31 PM (GMT -6) | | quote:
Originally posted by Cody Lewis Oaks
Ok this is the fourth time on this board that an open-viewer has played the semantics game with the work soveriegnty, becuase you're trying to keep it for your own, while still destroying it. It is not sovereignty unless God is in complete control, and is in no way dependent on man. that is how i am defining it. so leave the semantics alone please.
It's kind of rude, don't you think, to just show up in a forum and on your first thread start demanding that everybody obey your rules.
Anyway, where in Scripture is your definition of sovereignty ("God in complete control") stated? Serious question.
quote:
john, i believe that man is depraved. he is sinful.
Me too. But if God is in complete control, as you claim, then man's depravity is really God's depravity, for sinners are only doing God's bidding (as Calvin himself admits).
quote:
that is why christ's sacrfice was neccessary if we were to have our wrath due to us, absorbed by christ.
Hmmm. Where is it stated in Scripture that Christ absorbed the wrath due to us?
quote:
God alone sets up the rulers, kings, and princes.
Okay, now we have gone from soteriology to God's governance over human governments, which the Open View does not deny.
quote:
To let a naturally sinful human ultimatley decide the future is unacceptable.
I bolded the word, "ultimatley" (sic) because it is simply not the case that the Open View (or the Arminian view, for that matter) presents man as "ultimately" deciding the future. The Open View (I recommend you get a copy of Dr. Boyd's God of the Possible) has always affirmed and never denied that God has all the power He needs to accomplish His purposes in history, and that His ultimate victory is assured, by virtue of His omniPOTENCE, not by virtue of His omniscience per se.
Nice to have you around, Cody. This place has been kind of boring lately. Hope you stick around.
Sincerely,
John
http://revivaltheology.net | | Back to Top | | |
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Cody Lewis Oaks
Registered Member
Date Joined Nov 2004
Total Posts : 19
| Posted 11/30/2004 4:35 PM (GMT -6) | | | Hmmm.. I see. I think the infinitely intelligent chess master could only fit that title if he knew exactly what his oppenent would do next. That's what seperates him from being a "highly intelligent chess master" and and "infinitley intelligent chess master." Otherwise, we are on a level playing field, as you say, because finitude can plan a great strategy for his next move, and infinitude can know the next move, because he created it, loves it, and called it by name. | | Back to Top | | |
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Alan Rhoda
Registered Member
Date Joined May 2002
Total Posts : 680
| Posted 11/30/2004 4:39 PM (GMT -6) | | Cody: Ok this is the fourth time on this board that an open-viewer has played the semantics game with the work soveriegnty, because you're trying to keep it for your own, while still destroying it. It is not sovereignty unless God is in complete control, and is in no way dependent on man. that is how i am defining it. so leave the semantics alone please.
Alan: Cody, this is an unfair and question-begging stipulation on your part. You are trying to control the terms of the debate by stipulating that sovereignty requires "complete control". But this is a prejudicial definition as open theists see it, so you should not be surprised that open theists challenge your usage of that term. One of the central points at issue is whether sovereignty (properly understood) does require complete control. This is not mere semantics. It's at the heart of the debate.
Here's a suggestion. Let's call your view "meticulous sovereignty" because it holds that God is in complete control of everything, down to the tiniest details. And let's say that the open view affirms "general sovereignty" because it holds that God is firmly in control of matters on the macro level even though he does not completely control everything on the micro level.
Alan | | Back to Top | | |
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Cody Lewis Oaks
Registered Member
Date Joined Nov 2004
Total Posts : 19
| Posted 11/30/2004 4:39 PM (GMT -6) | | | No I don't think it was rude. I'm trying to defend myself aginst 3-5 people, most of which are probably much older and more learned than I. | | Back to Top | | |
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Cody Lewis Oaks
Registered Member
Date Joined Nov 2004
Total Posts : 19
| Posted 11/30/2004 4:46 PM (GMT -6) | | As for the verses pertaining to christ absorbing our wrath:
Galaltians 3:13
Romans 3:25
1 John 4:10 | | Back to Top | | |
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Alan Rhoda
Registered Member
Date Joined May 2002
Total Posts : 680
| Posted 11/30/2004 5:02 PM (GMT -6) | | Cody: I think the infinitely intelligent chess master could only fit that title if he knew exactly what his opponent would do next.
Alan: Why? In the first place, how would knowing that improve by one iota the chess master's ability to play the game? It wouldn't. Secondly, you assume that there is a definite antecedent truth of the matter about what the opponent "would" do. But how else could there be a definite antecedent truth about how the opponent "would" move unless the opponent's move was determined in advance and thus not truly free? If God is meticulously controlling the game, then He doesn't need any intelligence at all to win. He wins by sheer, unilateral power.
Consider these cases:
(1) Chess master A plays against a computer opponent and wins because he specifically programmed the computer to play a certain way and he merely exploits the weaknesses he built into it. (this corresponds to meticulous sovereignty)
(2) Chess master B plays against a computer opponent that he didn't program but he has somehow obtained an advance printout of how the computer will respond to his various moves and on the basis of this picks a winning sequence and plays it by rote. (classical Arminianism)
(3) Chess master C plays against a strong human opponent whose moves he does not know in advance, but because he perfectly anticipates every possible move the human could make and can calculate the optimum response is guaranteed a win no matter how the human plays the game. (open theism - general sovereignty)
Which chess master demonstrates the most intelligence? Which is most deserving of praise for winning? I submit that the answer to both questions is clearly (3).
Alan | | Back to Top | | |
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JEE
Registered Member
Date Joined Jul 2004
Total Posts : 1466
| Posted 11/30/2004 5:14 PM (GMT -6) | | quote:
Originally posted by Cody Lewis Oaks
As for the verses pertaining to christ absorbing our wrath:
Galaltians 3:13
Galatians 3:13 Christ redeemed us from the curse of the Law, having become a curse for us--for it is written, "CURSED IS EVERYONE WHO HANGS ON A TREE"--
Nothing in that verse about "absorbing wrath." Further, if the wrath of God was absorbed by Christ, why does Paul start his long deliberation on depravity in Romans 1 by saying "the wrath of God is being revealed from heaven, and why does Paul elsewhere speak of "the wrath to come?" Not to mention the Book of Revelation, which is pretty well full of God's wrath being "absorbed" by sinners.
Romans 3:25
Romans 3:25 whom God displayed publicly as a propitiation in His blood through faith. This was to demonstrate His righteousness, because in the forbearance of God He passed over the sins previously committed;
As in every other case in Scripture, the object of the propitiation is man, not God, unless you would have us believe that God has faith in Christ's blood in order for God to be propitiated by it.
1 John 4:10
Same thing in this verse; "propitiation" is assumed by the Calvinist/Anselmist to mean "a sacrifice that turns away wrath," when nowhere in Scripture is it revealed that:
1. God's wrath has in fact been appeased--it still continues towards sinners, and must, or else God is no longer just (if He ceases to hate sin).
Or,
2. That the propitiation was directed towards anyone but sinful man, so that their sins might be cleansed "through faith in His blood," as Rom. 3:25 says.
John
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Cody Lewis Oaks
Registered Member
Date Joined Nov 2004
Total Posts : 19
| Posted 11/30/2004 5:15 PM (GMT -6) | | | This all presupposes that we owe God anything, and that we even deserve to be playing the "game" which we don't. I am not peare-programmed. That is terminology for machines. I have a predestined path that I walk in daily, and that when I face a big decision, I know that I can walk in God's strength since he knows why i am there, and where I am going. I find freedom in that. I dont find any consolation that god might not know what's going to happen next, but he's "a pretty intelligent chess player!" so he can't screw up! The non-screw ups that you see are by pre-emptive design. Open view is so centered on man, and his freedom, and hidden will to be slightly autonomous(did we learn nothing from Aquinas?) the root of it is selfish, because it won't relinquish complete power, and I honestly pray for the uprooting and the dismissal of this destructive and unbiblical doctrine. | | Back to Top | | |
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Cody Lewis Oaks
Registered Member
Date Joined Nov 2004
Total Posts : 19
| Posted 11/30/2004 5:23 PM (GMT -6) | | | jee-what was the curse of the old law-that's right-wrath! | | Back to Top | | |
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JEE
Registered Member
Date Joined Jul 2004
Total Posts : 1466
| Posted 11/30/2004 5:25 PM (GMT -6) | | quote:
Originally posted by Cody Lewis Oaks
I have a predestined path that I walk in daily,
So could God just be deceiving you (for His glory, of course) into thinking you were predestined for heaven ("of the elect"), even though you may actually be predestined for hell to the glory of God?
quote:
and that when I face a big decision, I know that I can walk in God's strength since he knows why i am there, and where I am going.
For us Open Viewers, all of that is true, too.
quote:
I honestly pray for the uprooting and the dismissal of this destructive and unbiblical doctrine.
Tell us how you really feel, Cody.
Tell you what--you pray for the uprooting and dismissal of the Open View (and really work on understanding the Open View in the first place), and we will be here to answer your questions to the best of our ability, Lord willing. 
It is not clear to me why you might not just as well be inherently selfishly motivated to believe in Calvinism.
John
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Cody Lewis Oaks
Registered Member
Date Joined Nov 2004
Total Posts : 19
| Posted 11/30/2004 5:43 PM (GMT -6) | | Good advise. I will devote the rest of my life to understanding open view. The wages of sin is death(wrath).
um, I could be going to hell, but i don't think i am. if i do, i deserve to. god would be gloified in punishing a sinner. but, i believe in his son, so i work out my salvation with trembling. goodbye.
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Cody Lewis Oaks
Registered Member
Date Joined Nov 2004
Total Posts : 19
| Posted 11/30/2004 6:11 PM (GMT -6) | | | I would like to apologize if my tone has caused any offense to anyone on this thread. I guess i felt overwhelmed by being outnumbered, and got caught up in the spirit of debate(a wordly one), again, my apologies. | | Back to Top | | |
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PotOnWheel
Registered Member
Date Joined Jul 2001
Total Posts : 9890
| Posted 12/1/2004 11:08 AM (GMT -6) | | On one hand, you might have "Meticulous Sovereignty." An another hand, you might have "Open Theism."
But just because humans have two hands, that does not mean that the above two exhaust the historically available options.
John of Damascuscene (St. John of Damascus) can tell you another.
The first above seems to have little room for humans. The second above appears to me to be an alergic reaction to the first, and overdone in that.
Might check out what Paul Evdokimov has to say, in the tradition of St. John of Damascus: "NOT YOUR FATHER AUGUSTINE’S PREDESTINATION" on this site.
http://www.gregboyd.org/gbfront/forum/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=1643
This "third way" is nothing new!
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