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stringman
Registered Member
Date Joined Aug 2001
Total Posts : 4
| Posted 8/11/2001 7:05 PM (GMT -6) |   | Hey yall, this is my first post here, im just near finishing the god of possiblities book and i have one question. (sidenote: ive been looking at a few different threads here and noticed the level of discussion, it seems to be on a specialist level......im no specialist in anything really, im 17 just out of high school. Keep it on my level if at all possible :].)
I agree that god could not experience any sort of joy from actions that he all along foreknew were going to occur. Where i get confused is in thinking that god doesnt know the future as a set of settled occurances, but as a set of possibilities. If he knows all possibilities (the chess master analogy), how could there be anything new added to his knowlege when the possiblity becomes a reality? In other words any choice a free agent makes was part of a list of possiblities that god knew. Why would he enjoy a known possiblity becoming a reality any more than he would enjoy something foreknown become reality?
hehe i hope that made some sort of sense.
in him
-scott
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churchmouse522
Registered Member
Date Joined Jul 2001
Total Posts : 163
| Posted 8/11/2001 8:09 PM (GMT -6) | | Think of it this way, Scott. As a parent, I know that it is possible that my children will reject the Lord, and it's also possible that they will choose to serve Him. That does not diminish my joy when they actually choose to serve him. Does that analogy work for you, or were you thinking along some other lines?
Welcome to our discussion board, and don't worry: there are a lot of us who don't even remotely fit into the specialist level.
Mouse
"If we agree to search for Truth, we do violence to that search any time we silence a voice." Modes of Thought | | Back to Top | | |
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stringman
Registered Member
Date Joined Aug 2001
Total Posts : 4
| Posted 8/12/2001 5:37 AM (GMT -6) | | yes, i was somewhat thinking along those lines, however in boyds book it speaks of god experiencing novelty, surprise, ect.... If he knows all possiblities, i still dont see how its possible to experience those things.
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churchmouse522
Registered Member
Date Joined Jul 2001
Total Posts : 163
| Posted 8/12/2001 12:19 PM (GMT -6) | | If I perfectly know the odds of a particular thing happening are 100 to 1 and yet that thing comes to pass, I will be surprised even though I perfectly knew that it was indeed a possibility. Right? Am I tracking with you? Things that God knows as possibilities are just that: possibilities. They don't exist as realities until the free agent chooses them. Thus, God can experience surprise even though he perfectly knows the possibilities. Now, you have to remember that the whole of the future is not open this way. It consists partly of certainties too, so you don't have to go around worrying that everything is up for grabs. Hope that helps.
Mouse
"If we agree to search for Truth, we do violence to that search any time we silence a voice." Modes of Thought | | Back to Top | | |
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Triskal
Registered Member
Date Joined Jul 2001
Total Posts : 198
| Posted 8/15/2001 11:26 AM (GMT -6) | | quote:
yes, i was somewhat thinking along those lines, however in boyds book it speaks of god experiencing novelty, surprise, ect.... If he knows all possiblities, i still dont see how its possible to experience those things.
Would you experience joy and surprise if you won the lottery? I mean, you know it's possible to win, yet you'd most likely experience the joy and surprise if it did indeed happen. Not exactly a very great analogy, but I think you get the point.
In His Grip,
Matt
"In Him we live and move and have our being" - Acts 17:28 | | Back to Top | | |
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Bob Hill
Registered Member
Date Joined Aug 2001
Total Posts : 98
| Posted 8/24/2001 9:24 PM (GMT -6) | | stringman,
I’d like to add some scriptural basis for some of the remarks on this thread. I used to believe that prophecy in the Bible was prewritten history. But after studying many OT prophecies, I have found that there’s a multitude of warning prophecies that are conditional. I will show you what I mean from the following examples.
The first one’s a classic. In Exodus 32, God warned Moses that He was going to destroy Israel and make of Moses a great nation. Moses prayed and God repented/changed His mind. Ex 32:9-14 And the LORD said to Moses, “I have seen this people, and indeed it is a stiff-necked people! 10 Now therefore, let Me alone, that My wrath may burn hot against them and I may consume them. And I will make of you a great nation.” 11 Then Moses pleaded with the LORD his God, and said: “LORD, why does Your wrath burn hot against Your people whom You have brought out of the land of Egypt with great power and with a mighty hand? 12 Why should the Egyptians speak, and say, ‘He brought them out to harm them, to kill them in the mountains, and to consume them from the face of the earth’? Turn from Your fierce wrath, and relent from this harm to Your people. 13 Remember Abraham, Isaac, and Israel, Your servants, to whom You swore by Your own self, and said to them, ‘I will multiply your descendants as the stars of heaven; and all this land that I have spoken of I give to your descendants, and they shall inherit it forever.’” 14 So the LORD repented from the harm which He said He would do to His people.
After the 12 spies spied out the land of Palestine and 10 brought back a bad report, God got fed up with them.
Num 14:11-12 tells us about the incident. “Then the LORD said to Moses: ‘How long will these people reject Me? And how long will they not believe Me, with all the signs which I have performed among them? 12 I will strike them with the pestilence and disinherit them, and I will make of you a nation greater and mightier than they.” But Moses prayed, again. In Num 14:19,20 Moses prayed: “Pardon the iniquity of this people, I pray, according to the greatness of Your mercy, just as You have forgiven this people, from Egypt even until now.” What did God do? Our responsive God replied in verse 20 “I have pardoned, according to your word.” He changed His mind, again, after Moses interceded. After about 1,000 years time we read how God feels about this rebellious people in Jer 15:6: “You have forsaken Me,” says the LORD, “You have gone backward. Therefore I will stretch out My hand against you and destroy you; I am weary of repenting!
In Exodus 33:2, God promised that He would send His angel before Israel and drive out the Canaanite and the Amorite and the Hittite and the Perizzite and the Hivite and the Jebusite. Ex 33:2 “And I will send My Angel before you, and I will drive out the Canaanite and the Amorite and the Hittite and the Perizzite and the Hivite and the Jebusite. He didn’t make the promise just once. He repeated it. Ex 34:11 “Observe what I command you this day. Behold, I am driving out from before you the Amorite and the Canaanite and the Hittite and the Perizzite and the Hivite and the Jebusite.” Ex 34:24 “For I will cast out the nations before you and enlarge your borders; neither will any man covet your land when you go up to appear before the LORD your God three times in the year.” Josh 1:4,5 “From the wilderness and this Lebanon as far as the great river, the River Euphrates, all the land of the Hittites, and to the Great Sea toward the going down of the sun, shall be your territory. 5 No man shall be able to stand before you all the days of your life; as I was with Moses, so I will be with you. I will not leave you nor forsake you.” Josh 3:10 And Joshua said, “By this you shall know that the living God is among you, and that He will without fail drive out from before you the Canaanites and the Hittites and the Hivites and the Perizzites and the Girgashites and the Amorites and the Jebusites.”
However, as we continue to look at God’s prophecies, even when they seem absolute, unless they are said to be determined or the Lord swears with an oath, if man really blows it, God may not do what He said He would. We see that God did not drive out the “ites” because of Israel’s disobedience. Josh 15:63 As for the Jebusites, the inhabitants of Jerusalem, the children of Judah could not drive them out; but the Jebusites dwell with the children of Judah at Jerusalem to this day. Josh 16:10 And they did not drive out the Canaanites who dwelt in Gezer; but the Canaanites dwell among the Ephraimites to this day and have become forced laborers.
Jud 2:1-3 Then the Angel of the LORD came up from Gilgal to Bochim, and said: “I led you up from Egypt and brought you to the land of which I swore to your fathers; and I said, ‘I will never break My covenant with you. 2 And you shall make no covenant with the inhabitants of this land; you shall tear down their altars.’ But you have not obeyed My voice. Why have you done this? 3 Therefore I also said, ‘I will not drive them out before you; but they shall be thorns in your side, and their gods shall be a snare to you.’”
Jud 2:19-22 And it came to pass, when the judge was dead, that they reverted and behaved more corruptly than their fathers, by following other gods, to serve them and bow down to them. They did not cease from their own doings nor from their stubborn way. 20 Then the anger of the LORD was hot against Israel; and He said, “Because this nation has transgressed My covenant which I commanded their fathers, and has not heeded My voice, 21 I also will no longer drive out before them any of the nations which Joshua left when he died, 22 so that through them I may test Israel, whether they will keep the ways of the LORD, to walk in them as their fathers kept them, or not.”
Jud 3:1-6 Now these are the nations which the LORD left, that He might test Israel by them, that is, all who had not known any of the wars in Canaan 2 (this was only so that the generations of the children of Israel might be taught to know war, at least those who had not formerly known it), 3 namely, five lords of the Philistines, all the Canaanites, the Sidonians, and the Hivites who dwelt in Mount Lebanon, from Mount Baal Hermon to the entrance of Hamath. 4 And they were left, that He might test Israel by them, to know whether they would obey the commandments of the LORD, which He had commanded their fathers by the hand of Moses. 5 Thus the children of Israel dwelt among the Canaanites, the Hittites, the Amorites, the Perizzites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites. [All the ites He said He would drive out without fail.] 6 And they took their daughters to be their wives, and gave their daughters to their sons; and they served their gods.
If God knew what He was really going to do from the start, but said He repented, then, He would be a liar. My God of Tit 1:2 is called the Nonlying God. He has never lied.
Bob Hill
Edited by - Bob Hill on 08/25/2001 02:29:42 AM | | Back to Top | | |
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