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Registered Member
Date Joined Jun 2001
Total Posts : 516
| Posted 6/28/2001 6:19 PM (GMT -6) |   | Message
Dave
11/22/00 6:16 PM
Giving thanks in all circumstances???
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I am curious to know how an Open View Theist would respond to verses that implore us to give thanks in all circumstances? If God's will can be thwarted, than it seems ridiculous to give thanks for it. Nontheless, the Bible tells us to give thanks in these circumstances. I have read, and reread, a book called, "Prison to Praise," by Merlin Carothers. This book deeply affected the way I lived my life and caused me to give thanks in every situation. I am greatful for this book. However, now, after reading and studying Open View Theism, I am having a difficult time giving thanks in all circumstances because I am not sure if it is God's will that that circumstance occured. I hope this makes sense. Could anyone offer the Open View answer?? Thank you.
Posted Originally From: Open Theism Information Site
GregBoyd
11/23/00 11:34 AM
RE: Giving thanks in all circumstances???
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HI Dave,
I appreciate your question. Isn't it the case that Scripture admonishes us to give thanks IN all circumstances, not to be thankful FOR all circumstances? Doesn't the idea that we're supposed to be thankful FOR all circumstances (for they supposedly come from God's hand) result in paradoxical, if not blasphemous, consequences? For example, are we really to be thankful that Satan is devouring people? Are we to be thankful for each and every childrens scream and mother's wimper that takes place in this world? Did Jesus ever give thanks for the maimed, the sick, the afflicted and demonized he confronted? Did he not rather RAGE against it as something that is an assault on God's kingdom?
IN everything I want to give thanks that God is God, that I know him, that he's at work to bring good out of evil, that he loves me and wants to work through me, etc... But I think it borders on blasphemy to try to thank God FOR everything. One may as well thank the Devil for doing such a thorough job.
Hope this helps. Greg
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Lee Merrill
booted
Date Joined Jun 2001
Total Posts : 723
| Posted 6/30/2001 4:08 PM (GMT -6) | | <>
I would say that there is an important distinction to be made between how events affect God's children, and how they affect unbelievers. If we are God's children, we are to give thanks for the effects of all events as they affect us. For unbelievers, their response will be different.
This is one area that open theology seems to undermine, which I think is tragic.
"Cry for grace from God to be able to see God's hand in every trial, and then for grace to submit at once to it. Not only to submit, but to acquiesce, and to rejoice in it. I think there is generally an end to troubles when we get to that." (Charles Spurgeon)
"If anyone could tell you the shortest, surest way to all happiness and perfection, he must tell you to make it a rule to yourself to thank and praise God for everything that happens to you. For it is certain that whatever seeming calamity happens to you, if you thank and praise God for it, you turn it into a blessing." (William Law)
"There will come one day a personal and direct touch from God when every tear and perplexity, every oppression and distress, every suffering and pain, and wrong and injustice will have a complete and ample and overwhelming explanation." (Oswald Chambers)
God bless you,
Lee
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"What we love, we shall grow to resemble" (Bernard of Clairveaux)
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pia†desideria
Registered Member
Date Joined Jun 2001
Total Posts : 301
| Posted 6/30/2001 4:52 PM (GMT -6) | | Lee, thank you for joining us, and thank you for the Bernard of Clairveaux quote—I wholeheartedly agree! I also agree with the Oswald Chambers quote. I’m not so sure about the others…
What do you think is the basis for the “distinction to be made between how events affect God's children, and how they affect unbelievers”? Many unbelievers comfort themselves with the popular sentiment that “everything happens for a reason,” even though that reason is often unclear.
Blessings,
pia†desideria
Edited by - pia†desideria on 06/30/2001 9:54:20 PM | | Back to Top | | |
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Lee Merrill
booted
Date Joined Jun 2001
Total Posts : 723
| Posted 7/1/2001 4:16 PM (GMT -6) | | Maybe one good basis for the distinction to be made between how events affect God's children, and how they affect unbelievers is given by the times when Jesus wept.
He wept for Jerusalem, but he said "don't weep for me," even when he was about to be crucified. He wept for Mary, but he said also that she did not need to be sad, "for your sakes, I am glad," and I think this applied even to Mary and Martha: "you will see the glory of God."
Jesus did not weep for his disciples, even when he told them that they would be persecuted, chased from town to town, and even killed. He told them to leap for joy, if their troubles were because of rightousness.
And how could James write:
JAS 1:2 Consider it all joy, my brethren, when you encounter various trials...
if we know that our troubles may not have been God's best plan for all, "all joy" means wholeheartedness, which doesn't seem to be possible if God's purpose for us can be thwarted by the devil or by other people.
"Is it not well worth having, to have this settled conviction of your hearts, that Christ is moving through all the impulses of your life, and that nothing falls out without the intervention of His presence and the power of His will working through it? Do you not think that such belief would gird you up for difficulty, and would lift you buoyantly over trials and depressions, and would see you upon a vantage ground high above all the petty annoyances of life?"
"Tell me, is there any other place a Christian can plant his foot and say, 'Now I am on a rock and I care not what comes!' " (Alexander Maclaren)
God bless you,
Lee
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"What we love, we shall grow to resemble" (Bernard of Clairveaux)
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Lee Merrill
booted
Date Joined Jun 2001
Total Posts : 723
| Posted 7/7/2001 1:37 PM (GMT -6) | | "I was attending a prayer-meeting held for the promotion of scriptural holiness, when a strange lady rose to speak, and I looked at her, wondering who she could be. She said she had had great difficulty in living the life of faith, on account of the second causes that seemed to her to control nearly everything that concerned her. Her perplexity became so great, that at last she began to ask God to teach her the truth about it, whether He really was in everything or not. After praying this for a few days, she had what she described as a vision. She thought she was in a perfectly dark place, and that there advanced towards her from a distance a body of light, which gradually surrounded and enveloped her and everything around her. As it approached, a voice seemed to say, 'This is the presence of God; this is the presence of God!' "
"While surrounded with this presence, all the great and awful threats in life seemed to pass before her, — fighting armies, wicked men, raging beasts, storms and pestilences, sin and suffering of every kind. She shrank back at first in terror, but she soon saw that the presence of God so surrounded and enveloped each one of these, that not a lion could reach out its paw, nor a bullet fly through the air, except as His presence moved out of the way to permit it. And she saw that, let there be ever so thin a sheet, as it were, of this glorious presence between herself and the most terrible violence, not a hair of her head could be ruffled, unless the presence divided to let the evil through. Then all the small and annoying upsets of life passed before her, and equally she saw that these all were so enveloped in this presence of God that not a cross look, not a harsh word, nor petty trial of any kind, could reach her unless His presence moved out of the way to let them through."
"Her difficulty vanished. Her question was answered forever. God was in everything; and to her henceforth there were no second causes. She saw that her life came to her day by day and hour by hour directly from His hand, let the agencies which should seem to control it be what they might. And never again had she found any difficulty in an abiding consent to His will and an unwavering trust in His care." (Hannah Smith)
God bless you,
Lee
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"What we love, we shall grow to resemble" (Bernard of Clairveaux)
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