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 |  Tom Registered Member

Date Joined Jul 2001 Total Posts : 10353 | Posted 11/3/2005 8:46 AM (GMT -6) |   | Hi Sir Edward-
Good to hear from you. Hope you enjoy things. Watch out for "Mephi" (ha ha!). He's EXTREEEEEMLY consistent. ;o)
Well, of the three options you described, the best in my view is the third (of course!), the open view take on the passage. You describe it pretty well.
There's a big showdown debate going on right now here between those open theists who believe God really does "feel" joy, grief, anger, whatever and him (Mephi, an open theist too) who feels that since God possesses aseity (since God is self-existent and self-sufficient) it has to be the case that God, as God, is unsurpassably satisfied in terms of loving relationality and that this core, this essence of God, cannot be disturbed or accessed by us. It's what GOD IS. It's God's 'Godness'. And we can't influence that. So Mephi would say, OK, yeah, God feels our pain and grieves but only in the sense that this is an EXPRESSION of God's unsurpassably satisfied loving relationality IN THAT SITUATION. In God, where God does God, there's no emotional drag of disburbance whatsoever.
It gets kinda complicated and "out there," but don't think we're left with much of a choice biblically speaking that to affirm chancing emotional states in God, of joy, grief, etc. But I do think Mephi is on to something and we ought to view God's 'self-sufficiency' as in some sense inaccessible to the world.
Peace, Tom | | Back to Top | | |
   |  cbost6421 Registered Member
 Date Joined Jun 2004 Total Posts : 65 | Posted 2/1/2006 11:53 PM (GMT -6) |   |
Lee Merrill said... Welcome, Sir Edward...
Sir Edward said... The determinist view of this passage would be that God predestined the world to evil and then was sorry that he did it.
I would say God was grieved at this, though he knew it would happen, and it was in his plan from the beginning, as was the cross, which was also a source of grief to the "man of sorrows."
And the cross was not unforeseen by God:
Revelation 13:8 ... the Lamb that was slain from the creation of the world.
So how can we see that the cross was foreseen, and yet a cause of grief, and then say that Genesis 6 and other similar passages cannot mean this, too?
Blessings, Lee
Lee,
A very good point towards the Biblicalness (is that a word?) of determinism. Hard to think of a counter point for me so Let me spit this out and Maybe we can refine it later.
three things to remember.
This nor any other One verse in the Bible Proves that ALL things are forseen. But I do realize that is not your point here either so I will move on
Secondly, The Open View does not neglect the idea of things being foreknown. In the Open View there are two sense of things being foreknown, one set of actuallities... Things that cannot be altered because God or other agents has determined them and Thus God knows them as facts ahead of time. Then there is the things which are Undetermined and are abled to be influenced by GOd and other agents and incoporated into the plan. These thigns are Foreknown by God in the realm of Possibilities. God is no fool or Idiot, Those things which are not determined He can certainly plan for their possibility and foreknow those contigents.
This applies to this verse surpisingly well. As Open Theists We believe that God created the World planning that we would not sin and that we would follow Him in a real and Genuine Loving Relationship. Yet HE also knew for the relationship to be real and genuine (not a determined robotic programmed realtionship)that the risk of the human not wanting the relationship had to be real, thus including a reality of Possibilities.
But Praise God He did not make this Choice out of the relationship a one time deal, HE had a plan "Foreseen from the creation of the world." When the risk He took ended up the way it has... God implented the plan He had. He sent Jesus to Die for our sins, And not only for our sins, but for the sins of the whole world. (1 John 2:2) Thus HE foresaw Jesus's death as a Possibilty (though one may argue against this possibility argument simply by saying that the word here is "was" which means that it seems definite, as I said this is a difficult point and I am slowly working it out)
This is further supported by my final point. As you said That the "cross" was foreseen. However this is not what the verse says. This verse States that the Lamb and what happened to him was forseen, Not necessarily How it happened (i.e. the cross). It just says that the Lamb was slain was forseen, Not the Cross. Nor is there any mentions of the cross in the following or preceding verses. you cannot not use these verses to say that The Cross was forseen, only The Lamb that was slain.
God BLess,
Chuck stu.westga.edu/~cbost1/openviewtheism.html "those who pray truly are theologians and those who are theologians pray truly" -Evagrios The Solidary | | Back to Top | | |
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