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OrthodoxBerean
Registered Member
Date Joined Oct 2001
Total Posts : 82
| Posted 10/31/2001 5:45 AM (GMT -6) |   | Answering Greg Boyd's Openness of God Texts
John Piper
May 11, 1998
#1 Hezekiah's Repentance and 15 Added Years
Isaiah 38:1-5
In those days Hezekiah became mortally ill. And Isaiah the prophet the son of Amoz came to him and said to him, "Thus says the LORD, 'Set your house in order, for you shall die and not live.'" 2 Then Hezekiah turned his face to the wall and prayed to the LORD, 3 and said, "Remember now, O LORD, I beseech You, how I have walked before You in truth and with a whole heart, and have done what is good in Your sight." And Hezekiah wept bitterly. 4 Then the word of the LORD came to Isaiah, saying, 5 "Go and say to Hezekiah, 'Thus says the LORD, the God of your father David, I have heard your prayer, I have seen your tears; behold, I will add fifteen years to your life.'"
Observations:
1. All agree that God did not express an exception when he said, "You shall die and not live."
2. All agree that there was an implicit exception, perhaps: "You shall die, unless you repent and pray."
3. Boyd denies that God knew whether Hezekiah would fulfill the implicit exception.
4. Historic Christian exegesis affirms that God knew that Hezekiah would fulfill the implicit exception.
5. Boyd says that it would have been disingenuous of God to say that Hezekiah was going to die if he knew that he would not die but live 15 more years.
6. But Boyd's own view also seems to make God disingenuous. Is God telling the truth when he says," You shall die, and not live," when he really means," You might die, but won't if you repent"? Boyd's criticism of historic Christian exegesis applies to himself at this point.
7. But it is not true that one must always express explicitly the exceptions to the threats one gives or the predictions one makes in order to be honest. One reason for this is that there can be a general understanding in a family or group of people that certain kinds of threats or warnings always imply that genuine repentance will be met with mercy.
For example, in 1 John 4:8 "The one who does not love does not know God, for God is love." And 1 John 3:14 says, "We know that we have passed out of death into life, because we love the brethren. He who does not love abides in death." These could be taken in isolation to mean there is no exception or escape for any failure to love. But we don't take the implicit threat that way because a general understanding exists in John's community that this refers to unconfessed and persistent refusal to love. 1 John 1:8-9 makes this clear: "If we say that we have no sin, we are deceiving ourselves and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, He is faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness."
Therefore, we do not need to jump to the conclusion that every exception to every warning needs to be expressed especially where there is an understanding that genuine repentance and confession will be met with mercy. Hezekiah's earnest prayer for mercy seems to indicate that he did not assume there was no escape clause even though none was expressed. He seemed to assume that mercy may well be given if he repented.
8. What about the sincerity of God in making warnings when he knows that the warning will be heeded and the threatened punishment averted. We deal with that in the case of Jonah and the Ninevites.
#2 Jonah and the Repentant Ninevites
Jonah 3:4
Then Jonah began to go through the city one day's walk; and he cried out and said, "Yet forty days and Nineveh will be overthrown."
Jonah 3:10
When God saw their deeds, that they turned from their wicked way, then God relented concerning the calamity which He had declared He would bring upon them. And He did not do it.
Observations:
1. Both Boyd and historic Christian exegesis assume that there is an implicit condition that if the Ninevites meet, they will be spared.
2. Boyd believes that, if God knew with certainty that Nineveh would repent, the prophecy of impending destruction was insincere.
3. But the accusation of insincerity is warranted only if the threat or the condition of repentance was not true. That is, if God would NOT have overthrown Nineveh had they not repented, or if he WOULD have overthrown Nineveh even if they repented, then his threat would have been insincere. He would have been lying. But the threat and the condition were true. God would have indeed destroyed them had they not repented, and he did not destroy them when they did repent.
Greg seems to rule out the possibility that a God who knows all that will come to pass can sincerely warn against consequences that he knows will not come about (e.g., "Nineveh will be overthrown if you don't repent"). But, in fact, in God's mind, the warning may be the very means he is using to see to it that his foreknown future will come about; namely, that Nineveh will repent. God is not insincere in giving this warning. Had they not repented they would have perished.
#3 God's Changing His Plan
Jeremiah 18:7-8
At one moment I might speak concerning a nation or concerning a kingdom to uproot, to pull down, or to destroy it; 8 if that nation against which I have spoken turns from its evil, I will relent (= repent) concerning the calamity I planned to bring on it.
Observations:
1. It is entirely possible to see the "plan" of God here to be the thought or intention of his mind that went something like this: "I will bring calamity against a people that is evil and unrepentant." This is true and sincere. In other words, God's "plan" or "intention" or "thought" or "mind" may simply be such a fixed resolve in his mind. His resolve to punish correlates with the evil presently in the people when he expresses the resolve. If the people repent, God's resolve or "plan" or intention toward that people changes, that is what is meant by his "relenting" or his "repenting." This does not necessarily mean he has not foreknown this change in his "plan." In fact, the expression of his resolve to punish the kind of people he sees may be the means he uses to bring about the change in them that he foreknows so that his own change of resolve will accord with their new condition.
2. Boyd says that people have tried to evade the meaning of these texts by saying that God is speaking "anthropomorphically." Moreover the only reason one would argue this way, he says, is that one brings to the text a philosophical presupposition that God cannot literally change his mind.
3. But I do not argue this way. I say that there is a real change in God's mind, but that this does not imply a lack of foreknowledge. God can express an intention or a resolve toward a people that accords with what is true now, all the while knowing that this condition will not be true in the future, and that his resolve will also be different when their condition is different. That an future-knowing God speaks this way is owing to the fact that he really means for his word to be the means of bringing about changes in people to which he himself responds in a way that he knows he will.
4. The kind of change of mind Boyd wants to see, namely, a change owing to unforeseen future developments, is resisted perhaps not out of philosophical presuppositions, but out of exegetical insights from other relevant texts which make us hesitant to affirm that God changes his mind without qualification. (See 1 Samuel 15 and the issue of God's repenting that he made Saul king.)
#4 God's Repenting that He Made Saul King and God's Repenting that He Created Man
1 Samuel 15:11
God says, "I repent that I have made Saul king; for he has turned back from following me, and has not performed my commandments."
1 Samuel 15:28-29
And Samuel said to [Saul],"The LORD has torn the kingdom of Israel from you this day, and has given it to a neighbor of yours, who is better than you. 29 And also the Glory of Israel will not lie or repent for he is not a man, that he should repent."
Observations:
1. A natural reading of 1 Samuel 15 would seem to imply that there is a way that God does "repent" and a way that he does not. That is what I am arguing in the texts that Boyd puts forward. He insists that God repents in a way that implies lack of foreknowledge of what is coming. I think this is the kind of "repentance" that would fall under Samuel's criticism: "God is not a man that he should repent."
2. In other words, God does not have the human limitations of knowledge that would involve him in repenting that way. Rather his repentance is an expression of a resolve or an attitude that is fitting in view of new circumstances. That God is ignorant of what will call for that new resolve or attitude is not necessarily implied in the change.
3. So the repentance over Saul means not that he did not know what Saul would be like, but that he disapproves of what Saul has become and that he feels sorrow at this evil in his anointed king and that he looks back on his making him king with the same sorrow that he experienced at that moment when he made him king, foreknowing all the sorrow that would come.
For God to say, "I feel sorrow that I made Saul king," is not the same as saying, "I would not make him king if I had it to do over knowing what I know now." God is able to feel sorrow for an act that he does in view of foreknown evil and pain, and yet go ahead and will to do it for wise reasons. And so later when he looks back on the act he can feel the sorrow for the act that was leading to the sad conditions, such as Saul's disobedience.
Genesis 6:5-6
Then the LORD saw that the wickedness of man was great on the earth, and that every intent of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually. 6 The LORD was sorry that He had made man on the earth, and He was grieved in His heart.
Observations:
1. In view of the warning in 1 Samuel 15:29 that, "The Glory of Israel will not lie or repent; he is not a man, that he should repent," we are slow to attribute human-like repentance to God.
2. Rather it is plausible to find a "strange" repentance that is unlike anything we experience, namely, that God regrets what he foreknew - that the human race would fall into sin and be in need of a savior.
3. We are led to believe that God did foreknow this because of 2 Timothy 1:9 "God has saved us and called us with a holy calling, not according to our works, but according to His own purpose and grace which was granted us in Christ Jesus from all eternity." If the grace we needed in Christ was foreknown (even planned) from eternity, then the fall and the misery of man was known too.
4. In 1 Chronicles 29:18 David prays for the people after they have so willingly given to build the temple: "O LORD, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Israel, our fathers, preserve this forever in the intentions of the heart of Thy people, and direct their heart to Thee." This phrase is the same as the one in Genesis 6:5 but here it seems as if David assumes that God can govern what "intents of the heart" we have. If so, we should not assume too quickly that God can't know what they are in the future.
5. I propose that God created the world already feeling both the joy of this final salvation and the grief of the intervening fall and misery. When the fall and misery reached a height in Genesis 6:6 it is not unfitting for God to express this sorrow the way he does.
#5 When God Says, "Perhaps"
Jeremiah 26:1-3
In the beginning of the reign of Jehoiakim the son of Josiah, king of Judah, this word came from the LORD, saying, 2 "Thus says the LORD, 'Stand in the court of the LORD'S house, and speak to all the cities of Judah who have come to worship in the LORD'S house all the words that I have commanded you to speak to them. Do not omit a word! 3 Perhaps they will listen and everyone will turn from his evil way, that I may repent of the calamity which I am planning to do to them because of the evil of their deeds.'"
Observations:
1. The word "perhaps" may be spoken here by God not to express that he is unsure what they will do, but to express that from a human vantage point the people may or may not listen to him. But if they do, he will have mercy and not bring calamity.
2. Are there any clues in Jeremiah that we should be hesitant to say God does not know what will come to pass in the future? Jeremiah 10:23 causes me to be hesitant: "I know, O LORD, that a man's way is not in himself, Nor is it in a man who walks to direct his steps." On the face of it, this text seems to say that ultimately man is not the one who governs his steps. If so, then man does not have the kind of self-determining power that Boyd attributes to man. This means that man is not in a position to "create" out of nothing choices that surprise God. Rather, man's steps are finally governed by something outside him, and God would be able to know what these influences are and thus know the future.
3. Therefore, we should be slow to jump to the conclusion that when God says "perhaps" something will come to pass, he is expressing his own uncertainty rather than the perspective of man who cannot know ahead of time.
#6 Does God make Wrong Predictions and Get Surprised?
Jeremiah 3:6-7
Then the LORD said to me in the days of Josiah the king, "Have you seen what faithless Israel did? She went up on every high hill and under every green tree, and she was a harlot there. 7 I thought (literally: I said), "After she has done all these things she will return to Me"; but she did not return, and her treacherous sister Judah saw it.
Observations:
1. Boyd says that God really thought that the people would turn to him. But I do not see how he can evade the problem that this involves God in a mistake. God thought a falsehood as if it were true.
2. He says that God had a "perfectly accurate assessment of all probabilities" and given that assessment he thought that the people would repent. But, he says, "self-determining creatures opted for the more improbable course of action."
3. This implies two important things: one is that the only way that God cannot be mistaken here is if his statement ("they will turn") included the implicit qualification: "given the ordinary expectations under these conditions." This is what I think God meant. The difference between Boyd and me is that I believe God knew what the people would really do, when he implied that ordinary human probabilities would seem to lead to repentance. But Boyd believes that God did not know what they would do.
4. The other implication is that this text shows how vulnerable God would be if Boyd's view is right. God would do his very best in predicting on the basis of infinite knowledge, and would miss it, because of human self-determination. The implications of this are huge. It means that all talk of God's managing the world on the basis of known human influences is not very encouraging, because it is the essence of human self-determination that the most utterly unexpected choices can arise from the will and surprise God.
#7 The Testing of Abraham's Fear of God
Genesis 22:9-12
Then they came to the place of which God had told him; and Abraham built the altar there and arranged the wood, and bound his son Isaac and laid him on the altar, on top of the wood. 10 Abraham stretched out his hand and took the knife to slay his son. 11 But the angel of the LORD called to him from heaven and said, "Abraham, Abraham!" And he said, "Here I am." 12 He said, "Do not stretch out your hand against the lad, and do nothing to him; for now I know that you fear God, since you have not withheld your son, your only son, from Me."
Observations:
1. Boyd says that God did not know if Abraham would remain faithful and that the words "now I know" are disingenuous if this were not so. The test would be a charade if God already knew the outcome.
2. There is another way to think about God's knowing here. If God knows what will come to pass, does that mean that all testings in history are pointless? I don't think so. God has not created the world just to be known in terms of what would be if tests were given. He created the world to be actualized in history. That is, he wills not just to foreknow, but to know by observation and experience. That is the point of creating a real world, rather than just knowing one that might be. Therefore, may not God truly know what Abraham is going to do, and yet want to externalize that in a test that enables him to know it by observation, not just prognostication? "Now I know," thus may be, "Now I see . . . now I experience by observation of your real action."
3. A problem with Boyd's view is that God cannot really be sure it is true when he says, "Now I know that you fear God, since you have not withheld your son." The knife had not been put into the boy's chest and this is the moment when the will may well rebel and say "No!" We have seen from Jeremiah 3:7 how "mistaken" God's predictions can be on Boyd's way of seeing things. God cannot be sure that Abraham would have killed his son, because the volition had not yet been created for God to know. But perhaps this is not significant, since, even if Abraham had killed his son, God could still not be sure Abraham would not in the next moment rebel against the God that had forced him into such a test.
# 8 Which Signs of Moses Does God Expect to Be Believed?
Exodus 4:7-9
Then He said, "Put your hand into your bosom again." So he put his hand into his bosom again, and when he took it out of his bosom, behold, it was restored like the rest of his flesh. 8 "If they will not believe you or heed the witness of the first sign, they may believe the witness of the last sign. 9 "But if they will not believe even these two signs or heed what you say, then you shall take some water from the Nile and pour it on the dry ground; and the water which you take from the Nile will become blood on the dry ground."
Observations:
1. Can a God who knows what will come to pass with certainty say meaningfully, "Such and such may come to pass, if it doesn't then do this." Yes. Because he may only be saying that he chooses not to reveal what will in fact come to pass. He will only reveal possibilities and how to respond to them. He is not saying that he only knows possibilities. God may have his reasons for why he sometimes wants to communicate to us possibilities about the future, and other times certainties.
2. Boyd would say that it is disingenuous of God to say they may believe on the basis of the first or second miracle when he knows exactly how many it will take to persuade them. But there is at least one clue that God intended for Moses to do all the signs, namely, Exodus 4:17 where God says to Moses, "You shall take in your hand this staff, with which you shall perform the signs." God seems to know that more than one will be needed.
3. There are passages in the Pentateuch that show that there is a disconnect between the way that God talks about knowing, and the way he actually knows. For example, Genesis 18:21 "I will go down now, and see if they have done entirely according to its outcry, which has come to Me; and if not, I will know." This text portrays God as if he were too far away in heaven to know what is happening for sure in Sodom. But there are reasons for this way of speaking: it stresses God's condescension to be involved with his creatures and his intimate dealing with them and knowledge of them.
4. Similarly, I assume God has his reasons for speaking in Exodus 4:8 as if he did not know whether the elders would believe.
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Tom
Registered Member
Date Joined Jul 2001
Total Posts : 10353
| Posted 10/31/2001 4:00 PM (GMT -6) | | OB-
I imagine all these have been addressed before, but whenever the OV debate comes around to focusing on the interpretation of Scripture I love to jump in. I can hardly keep up with the philosophical threads! So I’m game for considering these passages. Why not take ‘em up one by one as long as you want to pursue ‘em? First, Hezekiah:
Piper: 2. All agree that there was an implicit exception, perhaps: "You shall die, unless you repent and pray.
TGB: Recognizing implicit exceptions in such cases does not render the declaration less than real. By “real” here I mean to say that God fully intended to do what he declared he would do at the time he declared it. In other words, the two events “Hezekiah not praying and dying” and “Hezekiah praying and living” both equally describe possible futures (and here comes the crucial difference) from God’s point of view. If something is impossible from God’s point of view, then it’s impossible for us as well, whether we know it to be so or not. As I understand Piper, he doesn’t believe “Hezekiah not praying and dying” describes a future which may genuinely have been the case from God’s point of view.
So, if by “implicit exception” one means to refer to the fact that God can be prevailed upon, i.e., he is of a mind to entertain the possibility of changing his mind with respect to something he intends to do, then I heartily agree that God’s declaration to Hezekiah was conditional. We have examples of other cases where God is not willing even to entertain requests that he change his mind.
But if by “implicit exception” Piper means to suggest that God did not fully intend the end of Hezekiah’s life because he eternally knew otherwise, then God is here merely describing what he knows to be impossible as if it were possible in order to motivate Hezekiah’s prayer. In this case I would say God is disingenuous.
Piper: 4. Historic Christian exegesis affirms that God knew that Hezekiah would fulfil the implicit exception.
TGB: And men are always right in what they have believed.
Piper: 6. But Boyd's own view also seems to make God disingenuous. Is God telling the truth when he says," You shall die, and not live," when he really means," You might die, but won't if you repent"?
TGB: This is why we have to be careful when we say there existed an implicit exception in the declaration, and it’s why I tend to view the original declaration as not conditional if by conditional we mean something like “God hadn’t yet made up his mind about bringing Hezekiah’s life to an end; and God was waiting for Hezekiah’s response before he resolved on a particular course of action.” This I personally would deny. I don’t think God is offering Hezekiah options to choose from. If there were options, they were not being offered by God. Hezekiah’s prayer is a possibility God foreknew, but not one which God seems to have gone out of his way to bring about by presenting Hezekiah with clearly defined options he could deliberate on.
In my view, when God tells Hezekiah “You shall die and not live” he doesn’t mean “You might die, but won’t if you repent.” He means “You shall die and not live.” This “becomes” conditional as God responds to Hezekiah’s plea. But the decree is not predicated on any condition. And yet God changes his mind. It’s called “relationship.” God fully intends to do what he said and that is all that’s in view, textually speaking, in the declaration. The open view, I suggest, makes best sense if this is viewed as God genuinely changing his mind as opposed to God presenting options, either one of which he is equally predisposed to bring about, and Hezekiah is left free to determine the outcome. There may be OVers who go with the later, but I think the former makes better sense of the passage.
Piper: Therefore, we do not need to jump to the conclusion that every exception to every warning needs to be expressed especially where there is an understanding that genuine repentance and confession will be met with mercy. Hezekiah's earnest prayer for mercy seems to indicate that he did not assume there was no escape clause even though none was expressed. He seemed to assume that mercy may well be given if he repented.
TGB: Either way the determinist view falters. The whole notion that “genuine repentance will be met with mercy,” coming from a determinist is an empty one, for in the determinist view genuine repentance IS the mercy which God grants. Presenting it in conditional terms predicated to man is, again, disingenuous. Hezekiah’s prayer does indeed indicate that he did not assume there was no escape from what was decreed. This doesn’t mean he thought God had not yet made up his mind, but rather that God might change his mind. But even if it does mean God was implicitly presenting Hezekiah with options, it still leads to an open future in this respect; both “Hezekiah not praying and dying” (option A) and “Hezekiah praying and living” (option B) are equally genuine possibilities from God’s point of view. If option A is not genuinely possible from God’s point of view, then it’s not possible, period, and God’s offering it to Hezekiah (even implicitly) is disingenuous.
The rub here is not between whether God’s decree to Hezekiah is implicitly conditional or not, as if it being conditional somehow condemns the open view and rescues determinism. Quite the opposite. Both outcomes create problems for determinism. Neither one creates problems for the open view. The question is whether or not both the decree (You will die) and the “implicit exception” (but not if you repent)—to use Piper’s term—are believed by determinists like Piper to describe equally genuine possibilities from God’s point of view. God’s the one making the decree and, in Piper’s view, implying the exception. Does Piper believe both decree and exception describe what are for God two futures either one of which might happen?
Piper: Therefore, we do not need to jump to the conclusion that every exception to every warning needs to be expressed…
TGB: Whether that particular point is jumped to or not in this passage doesn’t matter. The essential point the open view makes need not require God to make the conditional nature of his decree explicit. If the passage is, as I gather, an example of God’s genuinely changing his mind, then “conditional” cannot mean God’s mind was not yet made up, that God was less than intent in his decree. And if, as Piper thinks, God was implicitly offering options to Hezekiah, the future is still open with respect to when Hezekiah will die.
Tom
Edited by - tgb on 10/31/2001 9:12:22 PM | | Back to Top | | |
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Springs
Registered Member
Date Joined Jul 2001
Total Posts : 636
| Posted 10/31/2001 7:02 PM (GMT -6) | | Thanks Tom that was fantastic. It's nice to
find a thread I can understand. Modes lost me
on the 'abducted' thread, and Magnaton put me under on the other one. I think I'll go hang out on the threeness thread.
-Springs
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Modes of Thought
Registered Member
Date Joined Jun 2001
Total Posts : 817
| Posted 10/31/2001 8:16 PM (GMT -6) | | quote:
Thanks Tom that was fantastic. It's nice to
find a thread I can understand. Modes lost me
on the 'abducted' thread, and Magnaton put me under on the other one. I think I'll go hang out on the threeness thread.
-Springs
Don't do it!!!!
All you have to do when you are tempted to go to the threeness thread is say, "Get thee behind me Hegel!"
It sounds like yer not even trying to resist!
"Christianly understood, truth is obviously not to know the truth but to be the truth. Despite all modern philosophy, there is an infinite difference here..." SK | | Back to Top | | |
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OrthodoxBerean
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Date Joined Oct 2001
Total Posts : 82
| Posted 10/31/2001 8:46 PM (GMT -6) | | That was great Tom! I look foward to hearing the rest, if you intend on going through all these. You know of you do you might be challanged by Piper himself. You you take him up on that? Just curious!
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Tom
Registered Member
Date Joined Jul 2001
Total Posts : 10353
| Posted 11/1/2001 4:33 AM (GMT -6) | | Passage #2: Jonah
OB-
The open view stands or falls firstly on Scripture itself, so Piper’s comments are important to consider. Hey, it’d be kinda fun to go through all the passages he cites. Let’s try it. I think we’re in Jonah now. Piper feels this is an example of God making a sincere warning while knowing the condition will be met (i.e., they’ll repent) and they city will be spared.
Piper: 1. Both Boyd and historic Christian exegesis assume that there is an implicit condition that if the Ninevites meet, they will be spared.
TGB: Maybe we won’t need to go through all the passages Piper cites after all. This “implicit condition” talk doesn’t cast the least shadow of doubt on the claim that the future is partly open. Piper obviously uses it to suggest that God had not “made up his mind” to judge the Ninevites because this would involve a genuine change of mind on God’s part, something determinism does not allow. So, Piper needs this to be a conditional threat. But again, it doesn’t matter. Better sense of the text as we have it can be made on the premise that God meant exactly what he said, “In forty days you’ll be judged,” and that he subsequently changed his mind. But whatever the conditional nature of this declaration might be, it need not mean God was less than intent on bringing it about. Piper calls it a “threat” and that’s OK. Let’s use “threat.” But technically it’s not a threat. It’s simply a declaration of what God intends to do.
Again, if we treat it as conditional in the sense Piper means, then the issue remains whether the “threat” and the “condition” both are real from God’s point of view, real in the sense that from God’s point of view both “may” happen, meaning that the “may” is predicated to the Nenevites. If it’s predicated to God’s unconditional eternal decree for the Ninevites, then it’s not a “may” for the Ninevites.
If the threat describes an event God knows cannot happen (either because he didn’t predestine it to be so or because he previewed from his timeless vantage point that it in fact won’t happen) then in what sense does Piper believe it “possible”? Possible in the sense that God could have predetermined that they would not have repented? OK, granted. But is this meaningful? Is it a sufficient basis for judging the Ninevites? Piper thinks so.
From Piper’s point of view I suppose, God could have determined something other than repentance for these people. In this sense the threat is, or rather was, “possible.” (But this creates problems for Piper. When did God ever entertain the possibility of predetermining the Nenevites for judgment? Was there a time in the timeless past of God’s existence when he did not know as “settled” what the future would in fact hold for these people?)
Piper: 3. But the accusation of insincerity is warranted only if the threat or the condition of repentance was not true...
TGB: True in what sense? And true for whom? It seems to me that to be sincere the threat has to describe a future which may genuinely come to pass from God’s point of view at the time he declares it to the Ninevites. Does Piper believe the threat is true in this sense?
Piper: …That is, if God would NOT have overthrown Nineveh had they not repented, or if he WOULD have overthrown Nineveh even if they repented, then his threat would have been insincere.
TGB: He’s certainly right in what he affirms. God would have been a flat out liar had he judged the repentant or not judged the wicked (though I wonder whether God was free to extend the 40 days in a graceful attempt to win their repentance. It wouldn’t bother me if he did). But I think Piper is incorrect in what he denies. He describes events which God has already determined should not take place, then claims that the charge of insincerity depends upon these happening.
“True” and “untrue” (I prefer “genuine” and “not genuine”) apply to what the threat is when God gives it, not only to what it would be if God didn’t follow through with it after the fact. But if Piper believes the threat is “true” or “genuine” when God gave it, then I’d love to know in what sense he means “true” or “genuine.”
Piper:Greg seems to rule out the possibility that a God who knows all that will come to pass can sincerely warn against consequences that he knows will not come about (e.g., "Nineveh will be overthrown if you don't repent").
TGB: Isn’t this the same as saying “Greg and I disagree”?
Piper: But, in fact, in God's mind, the warning may be the very means he is using to see to it that his foreknown future will come about; namely, that Nineveh will repent. God is not insincere in giving this warning. Had they not repented they would have perished.
TGB: Now Piper reveals what he means when he says the threat is “true.” He means it is a “means to see to it that his foreknown future (= predestined will) comes about.” Piper doesn’t believe the threat represents an event God believes may (in any meaningful sense of the word) come about. Why? Not because of past or present circumstances that forbid it, but because God forbids it. When the condition ought to be predicated to the Ninevites (if indeed there’s a condition in God’s mind here, something the text doesn’t require) Piper predicates it to God. This is what makes it disingenuous.
Piper believes God threatens people with things he knows cannot possibly happen in order to get them to do what he’s predestined them to do. One is free to believe that this is the sort of thing that happens when they respond to God’s guidance, deliberate between options, or pray or commune with God. I personally wouldn’t call it a relationship and I wouldn’t know how to live in such a world.
Piper: God is not insincere in giving this warning. Had they not repented they would have perished.
TGB: But again, what Piper means by “Had they not repented” is “Had God not predestined them to repent.” Gee, that’s warm and meaningful. In a deterministic world, conditions predicated to human beings are not what they seem. They are in fact nothing more than the predetermined means to predetermined ends.
In the end, we only know what “insincere” and “disingenuous” mean as they apply to our behavior. If I behaved with my children as God is described by Piper as behaving here, I’d be disingenuous and my kids would know it. I may do it for some otherwise noble end, but it doesn’t make the proposed threat “true.” I’d like to know if Piper would consider telling his kids lies (i.e., describe to them as possible what he knows is not possible) in order to get them to do what he wants.
Blessings,
Tom 
PS Pia, I noticed after posting this that I had some blatant, eh, what-a-ya-call-'em, "men" for "people" things. You know. I tried to change the ones I noticed. Sorry!
Edited by - tgb on 11/01/2001 10:29:36 AM
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Tom
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| Posted 11/1/2001 7:16 AM (GMT -6) | | Passage #3: Jeremiah 18
OB-
I love this passage. It’s self-explanatory and simple. To get a determinist take on it requires some doing.
One comment, I feel a little awkward presenting Piper’s name in bold with my response, especially since he isn’t responsible for posting his stuff. I haven’t read what you posted of his in its original form, so I don’t know if you cut and pasted or edited things a bit. Anybody have some thoughts on this? It’s convenient to interact with Piper’s stuff by laying it out the way I have been, but I don’t want to be unfair. Suggestions?
Piper: 1. …His resolve to punish correlates with the evil presently in the people when he expresses the resolve. If the people repent, God's resolve or "plan" or intention toward that people changes, that is what is meant by his "relenting" or his "repenting."
TGB: I like it! If I didn’t know better I’d say Piper had converted to the open view. “Relenting” or “repenting” mean a change in God’s intention, or intended course of action, with regard to the wicked. They repent. He changes his mind. Exactly!
Piper: This does not necessarily mean he has not foreknown this change in his "plan."
TGB: Is a foreknown change of plan really a “change of plans”? Especially if, as Piper believes, it is not simply foreseen, but predetermined? In what sense is it a “change” in God’s plan for things to go exactly as he alone determines? I suppose only in the sense that WE perceive it to be a change. And thus we are back at square one. Ditto what was said previously about the importance of changes being real for God and not merely apparent for us.
If God “foreknows all,” he foreknows his own actions as well. He hasn’t predetermined only the human side of history while leaving himself free to change and adapt along the way. So, God’s actions are as settled and foreknown as are ours. So in what sense does such a God experience a “change of plans” (or a change of anything)? I just don’t see that saying it’s so makes it so. If the declared threat is God’s predetermined means to bring about the predetermined repentance of people, then that IS God’s plan of action. There’s no change in it. No relenting or repenting from God’s point of view. It’s analogous to changing the scenery on a stage between acts. It’s a change, but not a change of “plan” or “script.” In this case, a change of scenery is not a change of plans.
Piper: In fact, the expression of his resolve to punish the kind of people he sees may be the means he uses to bring about the change in them that he foreknows so that his own change of resolve will accord with their new condition.
TGB: We’re back to understanding God’s expressed resolve to judge the wicked as the predetermined means to bring about a predetermined end. “Oh the tangled webs we weave….” (I don’t mean to apply the second line of that little poem to Piper, but the first line describes it well.)
“…so that his own change of resolve will accord with their new condition”? Please read this as, “so that the condition will accord to God’s foreknown [=predetermined] end.” See the difference? If, as Piper says, God’s declared intention to judge the wicked is his predetermined means to bring about a course of action he has eternally foreknown, then it cannot in any sense of the word be a change of plans or a change of “God’s resolve to accord with the new condition.” On the contrary, God has pursued one plan of action without the slightest change in order to bring the conditions into accord with this plan (which, of course, IS his plan!).
Piper: 3. …I say that there is a real change in God's mind, but that this does not imply a lack of foreknowledge. God can express an intention or a resolve toward a people that accords with what is true now, all the while knowing that this condition will not be true in the future, and that his resolve will also be different when their condition is different.
TGB: But “what is true now” IS God’s predetermined course of action. At any given point in time, all reality represents God’s own plan of action up to that point in time.
It’s confusing when a determinist speaks of God’s intentions “according with what is the case” at any given point in time. Makes it sound like events outside of God affect a change of mind, will, or emotion in God (which is what the open view believes). But in truth determinism insists on the opposite, namely, that “all reality accords with God’s resolved will and plan.” There are no changes in God’s plan to speak of, unless we concede to describe all our human and other physical changes as changes of scenery in a play between acts. Can these be “real changes of plan” for the Director who has the script before him?
Piper: That a future-knowing God speaks this way is owing to the fact that he really means for his word to be the means of bringing about changes in people to which he himself responds in a way that he knows he will.
TGB: And so we come full circle. By this last sentence Piper must mean, “…to which he himself acts in a way he has predetermined for himself.” In other words, God does what he predetermined he would do when an evil nation does what he predetermined it to do (that is, when the circumstances “accord” with his will, not the other way around), he withdrawals impending judgment. This simply means God doesn’t miss a cue. He always plays his part at the right time. Never early, never late; a consummate director/actor.
Hey guys, attack me here. I could be wrong on all of this. If I am I’d liked to be reasoned into the truth. Show me the way!
Tom
“Christianity is all for practice, and so much time as is spent in quarrels about it is a diminution to its interest. We inquire so much what it is that we have but little time left to be Christians.” Jeremy Taylor | | Back to Top | | |
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GODesteem
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| Posted 11/1/2001 7:30 AM (GMT -6) | | Hi Tom! Talk about Deja vu! Me thinks I am in the midst of a CPI debate! :c)
Just three interesting points in response to your words:
"TGB: Whether that particular point is jumped to or not in this passage doesn’t matter. The essential point the open view makes need not require God to make the conditional nature of his decree explicit. If the passage is, as I gather, an example of God’s genuinely changing his mind, then “conditional” cannot mean God’s mind was not yet made up, that God was less than intent in his decree. And if, as Piper thinks, God was implicitly offering options to Hezekiah, the future is still open with respect to when Hezekiah will die."
My response:
First off, is there any particular reason why God told Hezekiah anything? Why would God send Isaiah and purposefully speak through him to let Hezekiah know God's intentions? Is He just being polite?
Secondly, what would the natural reaction be to hearing that you were about to die? Obviously it is possible that a person may simply concede to the truth, and prepare for death. But, even on openness grounds, God knows Hezekiah's heart, even down to the inward motivations and desires, and surely knows Hezekiah better than he knows himself. It seems quite plausible for God to be using a declaration which includes an implicit condition, for the very reason that He knows what kind of response Hezekiah will give! You admit this yourself in other cases (the men of Keilah). Why is this not plausible here? Is it because you can't comprehend God knowing the future decision of Hezekiah and
Hezekiah making a real decision in response to God's declaration? Could this be a philisophical stumbling block, rather than a Scriptural one?
Third, and most importantly, let me respond to this quote:
Tom: "And if, as Piper thinks, God was implicitly offering options to Hezekiah, the future is still open with respect to when Hezekiah will die."
Let us look at the text and see how open Hezekiah's lifespan really is.
"2 Kin 20:5 "Return and say to Hezekiah the leader of My people, 'Thus says the Lord, the God of your father David, "I have heard your prayer, I have seen your tears; behold, I will heal you. On the third day you shall go up to the house of the Lord.
2 Kin 20:6 "I will ADD FIFTEEN YEARS to your life, and I will deliver you and this city from the hand of the king of Assyria; and I will defend this city for My own sake and for My servant David's sake." (bold is mine)
What is "open" about God declaring that Hezekiah will have exactly 15 more years of life? How could God possibly know and predict this? Can you imagine the number of future free-will choices that will involve Hezekiah (made by himself and innumerable others) over the 15 years? Surely the number is enormous. And yet, somehow, according to Open Theists, God in His resourcefulness will figure it all out and make sure that Hezekiah is dead in fifteen years. How is the openness understanding of this passage compelling?
Benjamin Musclow
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whasssuuuppp
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| Posted 11/1/2001 7:39 AM (GMT -6) | | From Tom:
quote:
Piper believes God threatens people with things he knows cannot possibly happen in order to get them to do what he’s predestined them to do. One is free to believe that this is the sort of thing that happens when they respond to God’s guidance, deliberate between options, or pray or commune with God. I personally wouldn’t call it a relationship and I wouldn’t know how to live in such a world.
and
quote:
But again, what Piper means by “Had they not repented” is “Had God not predestined them to repent.” Gee, that’s warm and meaningful. In a deterministic world, conditions predicated to human beings are not what they seem. They are in fact nothing more than the predetermined means to predetermined ends.
Well put!
***********************
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Tom
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| Posted 11/1/2001 11:25 AM (GMT -6) | | Passages #4: 1Sam. 15.11, 28-29
First to Ben. Greetings Bro! I'll get back to you in time. Got on line to post this and saw your note. I knew if Piper's name came up anywhere you'd show up! Blessings to ya!
Hi all-
I’m afraid if we try to cover all eight passages we’ll simply be repeating a lot of stuff. There are only a couple of foundational points at stake: Does God change his mind (in the manner discussed in Jer. 18 above)? Do conditions expressed, either explicitly or implicitly, in God’s declarations of intent to act describe futures which either may or may not come to pass from God’s point of view? The other issues, like whether God can regret decisions he has made, flow out of these.
I’d like to applaud Piper for at least conceding the reality of God’s emotions. He does attempt to articulate how a God who predetermines all things might possibly look back with sorrow and regret over what he predetermined.
Piper: 1. A natural reading of 1 Samuel 15 would seem to imply that there is a way that God does "repent" and a way that he does not.
TGB: I’m relatively new to the open view, but it would seem to me that a natural reading of this passage would suggest not different “ways” of repenting and not repenting, but simply different circumstances or conditions under which God repents. I would think it would be impossible to know all the variables that might converge to constitute a situation in which God would repent. Not that he isn’t guided in such instances by his own inner character; I simply think that it’s his character together with the variables that exist in any given situation that define when God repents or doesn’t. Others may disagree. My point is simply that the text itself here doesn’t suggest a “way” in which God repents and another “way” in which he doesn’t repent. It rather suggests that God either repents or doesn’t given his own character in relationship with the circumstances (which he knows exhaustively and perfectly) at hand.
In this case God regretted having made Saul king. He brings Saul’s career to and end. What he refuses to repent of (change his mind regarding) later is THIS decision to bring Saul’s career to and end. “God is not like a man” means not that he never will change his mind about decisions he has made, but that he doesn’t change his mind repeatedly about having changed his mind.
Piper: Rather his repentance is an expression of a resolve or an attitude that is fitting in view of new circumstances. That God is ignorant of what will call for that new resolve or attitude is not necessarily implied in the change.
TGB: Here again I think Piper’s language disguises his determinism. Phrases like “…in view of new circumstances” lead one to believe God is somehow “responding” to changing circumstances. But remember that all circumstances “accord” to God’s will. It would be more proper for Piper to say “the circumstances change as is fitting in view of new attitudes or a new resolve in God.” This follows naturally from Piper’s belief that declarations of intent to act are “means” for achieving his desired goal.
In what sense is God’s change of “resolve” or “attitude” a genuine response to the circumstances if God foreknew what those circumstances would be? Again, if you mean “change” in the sense of changing the scenery on stage between acts in a play, then I grant you such “repentance” is a change. But this is not the “stuff” of which “relationships” are made.
Piper: 3. So the repentance over Saul means not that he did not know what Saul would be like, but that he disapproves of what Saul has become and that he feels sorrow at this evil in his anointed king and that he looks back on his making him king with the same sorrow that he experienced at that moment when he made him king, foreknowing all the sorrow that would come.
TGB: OB, what do you think about this. I mean, does it make sense to you? God foreknows what Saul will be like because he predetermined what Saul would be. When God’s predetermined end for Saul arrives, God “disapproves” and “feels sorrow.” God looks back on his own decision to make Saul king with the same sorrow that he felt at the moment he made Saul king? Did you cut and paste this last sentence correctly? I can hardly believe Piper means to say this. Again, I’m in this discussion to see what we can get out of the text and I don’t see any of this in the text. Do you?
Piper: For God to say, "I feel sorrow that I made Saul king," is not the same as saying, "I would not make him king if I had it to do over knowing what I know now."
TGB: Well, I’m not gonna try to psychoanalyze God by venturing to suggest what else God might have been saying to himself at this particular moment. But certainly God was sorry he made Saul king. Let’s reason on from there. First thing that comes to my mind is this; if our God-talk and the God-world relationship is to have any integrity to it, then there has to be some essential similarity between God’s repentance and our repentance, otherwise God’s not communicating to US. God is, after all, a good communicator. If you take OUT of repentance the notion of “wishing you hadn’t done what you did” when applied to God, then what’s essentially similar between God “repenting” and our “repenting”? Just that we “feel bad” or have “sorrow”? Is “sorrow” the defining characteristic of “repentance” What is? We need the similarity to hang the meaning upon. Otherwise we’re lost hermeneutically.
I for one don’t know what it would mean for ME to regret and feel sorrow over a decision I made, knowing certainly all that would happen, so I don’t know what it means for God. In this case, I don’t see how the word “repent” provides a bridge to understanding what God is here expressing to us. And it’s determinism, in my view, that burns that bridge. If God foreknew (predestined even) Saul’s entire career, then what does it mean for him to “regret” it? He foreknew his sorrow in a timeless eternity but just waited until this moment to decide to “feel” it?
Do you know what Piper means OB? Let’s have it.
Tom
“Christianity is all for practice, and so much time as is spent in quarrels about it is a diminution to its interest. We inquire so much what it is that we have but little time left to be Christians.” Jeremy Taylor | | Back to Top | | |
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rb1963b
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| Posted 11/2/2001 11:45 AM (GMT -6) | | all debate stands or falls because of the foundation that it is laid upon, I believe I can support this statement with scripture.
Now, Piper has these three numbered statements:
4. Historic Christian exegesis affirms that God knew that Hezekiah would fulfill the implicit exception.
5. Boyd says that it would have been disingenuous of God to say that Hezekiah was going to die if he knew that he would not die but live 15 more years.
6. But Boyd's own view also seems to make God disingenuous. Is God telling the truth when he says," You shall die, and not live," when he really means," You might die, but won't if you repent"? Boyd's criticism of historic Christian exegesis applies to himself at this point.
# 4, he shows no evidence to support this statement. What we have is an ASSUMPTION that is based on the hypothesis that God is omniscient. Although much of Christian history may ACCEPT the hypothesis as being true, this does NOT indeed mean that it is true. Once apon a time, "Christian" tradition stated that the Sun revolved around the earth.
5. Boyd is correct, WHY? Because God did not name the preconditions on what it would take for Hez. to live.
6. Piper should note the "SHALL" there, go to dictionary to see if it is a concrete word or a word that can have exceptions.
With the flawed foundation, the rest of the work can be deemed suspect.
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Tom
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| Posted 11/2/2001 12:46 PM (GMT -6) | | Hi Ben-
Just to clarify a couple of things about Hezekiah that aren’t usually mentioned. First, 2Ki 20 makes clear that Hezekiah became sick and was at the point of death when God sent Isaiah to inform him that the sickness would indeed result in his death. He would not live. I think I earlier said something like God informed Hezekiah that God was “bringing his life to an end.” That’s not entirely true. Looking again at the passage, all it seems to be saying is that God, knowing the state of Hezekiah’s health at the time, knew that Hezekiah wouldn’t survive it and he decides to tell Hezekiah as much.
Ben: First off, is there any particular reason why God told Hezekiah anything? Why would God send Isaiah and purposefully speak through him to let Hezekiah know God's intentions?
Tom: You question assumes that the only way to make sense of God’s informing Hezekiah he would die is if God knew he wasn’t going to die and that the information is designed to bring about God’s foreknown will (as Piper says).
Perhaps God’s being polite is not too far off the mark. I’m not claiming that’s all it is, but “get your house in order” seems to suggest that God is giving Hezekiah an opportunity not many of us get, and that is to know we’re going to die and to have an opportunity to balance our books. If God is “being polite” here, is that such an insignificant thing? If I were sick unto death, I would consider such an opportunity a great grace.
But I never suggested that the announcement that Hezekiah would die was absolutely unconditional (for example, in the sense that God’s decision to end Saul’s career was unconditional). Jer. 18 suggests that though God’s mind may be made up regarding his intention to judge unrepentant nations, he still may change his mind. My point was that this “conditional” element doesn’t mean God hasn’t “made up his mind” to do what he says he’s going to do or—in Hezekiah’s case—that God is less than fully convinced that what he says is going to happen will happen at the time he says it.
To me the crucial issue is what how these decrees and their explicit or implicit conditions are viewed by God. And I’m concerned about how God views these because in my view it’s God’s view which ultimately determines whether or not God-talk and God’s relationship with the world has “integrity” to it. Does that make sense, Ben?
Piper uses “implicit exception” (i.e. conditional declarations by God) to argue that the existence of an implied conditional element (proven by the fact that Hezekiah didn’t die in the end; I agree) in itself suggests that God could not have been convinced that Hezekiah would die. For Piper, “condition” in such a case describes only how things “appear” to us (or possibly to what God could have predetermined to happen). This in my view damages the integrity of the God-world relationship.
Ben: Secondly, what would the natural reaction be to hearing that you were about to die? Obviously it is possible that a person may simply concede to the truth, and prepare for death. But, even on openness grounds, God knows Hezekiah's heart, even down to the inward motivations and desires, and surely knows Hezekiah better than he knows himself…
Tom: About possible reactions to learning that you’re going to die, you’re right, both “conceding defeat” and “fighting for your life” are possibilities. But you and I mean different things when we say this. I mean these two reactions are both genuinely possible from God’s point of view because the integrity of our relationship to God depends on this. But you must admit that in any such situation God has predetermined only one specific reaction. In what sense then are we capable of responding in ways not determined for us by God? I hope I’m making myself clear.
Point is, for determinist the integrity of God’s relationship to us and ours to him depends only upon our believing at the time that we are free to choose either to fight for our lives or to concede defeat. After reading through Piper’s stuff again and again, I have this growing conviction that how we define the “integrity” of God-talk and God’s relationship to us practically decides how we interpret these passages. A related beef I have with determinists is that it seems to me that when it comes to their wives, husbands, children, and other “human” relationships, they function with an understanding of “relational integrity” in agreement with what I’m arguing here. But when it comes to God everything changes. Do they get that from the Bible?
Ben: It seems quite plausible for God to be using a declaration which includes an implicit condition, for the very reason that He knows what kind of response Hezekiah will give! You admit this yourself in other cases (the men of Keilah). Why is this not plausible here? Is it because you can't comprehend God knowing the future decision of Hezekiah and Hezekiah making a real decision in response to God's declaration? Could this be a philisophical stumbling block, rather than a Scriptural one?
Tom: Well, the philosophical (or shall I say the role of reason) does play a big part. It’s hard to chop the process up in pieces. We read the Scripture, reason about it, and relate it to our experience in a sort of seamless fashion. Philosophically I am convinced that future choices foreknown by God are as settled and unalterable as the past and as such are not significantly free. I don’t deny it; this is a huge point.
I don’t deny that God knew Hezekiah well enough to know that his asking for healing was a possibility. But this, my friend, is the “stuff” of relationships. After all is said and done, there exists a fundamental sense in which we’re free to do otherwise. So, I also think God knew Hezekiah well enough to know that his not turning to God for help was also a possibility.
About God foreknowing Hezekiah’s actions in the sense he foreknew that the men of Keilah would surrender David, I don’t deny that God could do so. But this is not the sort of “foreknowledge” you or Piper are arguing for. If the actions of the men of Keilah were settled ahead of time it’s because their characters were sufficiently (by their own free choice over time) fixed. That’s precisely NOT how you and Piper would argue God’s knows anything about the future because it means God’s knowledge would then be informed by circumstances outside himself. And for determinists, that’s a no-no.
I don’t think it’s plausible in Hezekiah’s case because of the language God uses: “You shall die. You shall not live.” Why the double reference to the same event? Could it be to stress the certainty of the issue? God gives every indication there’s little doubt in his mind at the time he declares it to be so that Hezekiah ain’t gonna make it. This is a terminal sickness.
Ben:Third, and most importantly…What is "open" about God declaring that Hezekiah will have exactly 15 more years of life? How could God possibly know and predict this? Can you imagine the number of future free-will choices that will involve Hezekiah (made by himself and innumerable others) over the 15 years? Surely the number is enormous. And yet, somehow, according to Open Theists, God in His resourcefulness will figure it all out and make sure that Hezekiah is dead in fifteen years.
Tom: This is easy. If God (for lack of a better word) believed Hezekiah was going to die and if God changed his mind and added 15 years, then the future is open! There it is! This doesn’t mean God is incapable of setting a limit to Hezekiah’s life-span. No indeed. If God wants to limit somebody’s lifespan, what’s the problem? He doesn’t need your, my, or Hezekiah’s permission. However many free choices Hezekiah might make in that 15 year span have nothing to do with it. When 15 years are up, no choice of Hezekiah’s is going to forbid God to call him home should God come a calling.
And don’t forget, God “added” fifteen years to Hezekiah’s life. But if these years were what God predetermined for him anyhow, in what sense were they “added.” I think I hear you saying, “The word ‘added’ is an anthropomorphism. It’s a human description of the event from a human point of view,” which brings me back to the issue of the integrity of God’s relationship to us and the language he uses to talk to us.
Besides, you’re in a fix if you suggest that “I will add fifteen years to your life” is a human description of the event. For how can you then use this phrase to argue that the future is NOT open for God?
Gotta run
Tom
“Christianity is all for practice, and so much time as is spent in quarrels about it is a diminution to its interest. We inquire so much what it is that we have but little time left to be Christians.” Jeremy Taylor | | Back to Top | | |
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Tom
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| Posted 11/3/2001 2:07 PM (GMT -6) | | OK OK, I get it! The posts where overwhelming! Let's move on...eh, tennis anyone?
Tom
“Christianity is all for practice, and so much time as is spent in quarrels about it is a diminution to its interest. We inquire so much what it is that we have but little time left to be Christians.” Jeremy Taylor | | Back to Top | | |
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OrthodoxBerean
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| Posted 11/4/2001 12:35 AM (GMT -6) | | Hey GREAT responses TOM!
You should come help me defend that Open view on my board! I need it (I am all alone in the midst of Calvinsti wolves hehe :-)
You seem to have some good insights that I don't have yet, being that I am new to the Open View. I would enjoy having you onboard!!!
The discussion board is at www.delphi.com/christiantap/messages
(ALSO ANY OTHER OPEN THEIST!!! PLEASE COME ALONG)
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GregBoyd
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| Posted 11/4/2001 6:19 PM (GMT -6) | | OrthodoxBerean: GREAT idea posting Piper's responses on this site for interaction. Thanks.
TGB, I appreciate all the time and insight you bring to the table. Excellent responses. Keep it up.
As to the integrity of putting Piper's name here in bold... so far as I can tell OrthodoxBerean is just cutting out sections of Piper's web site IN BLOCK. I see no problem ascribing to Piper what Piper himself has publically published unless you have reason to think that the quotation you are interacting with has been taken out of context. So far as I can see, none have.
Wish'n I had more time to join in the discussion. But alas...
Doc
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Tom
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| Posted 11/6/2001 2:17 PM (GMT -6) | | Passage #6: Gen. 6
Hi all-
Thanks Doc. I’m just exercising my brain. Hey, say hi to Roger Forster when you see him this month. He’s a nice guy! Studied Mathematics at Oxford. Super brainy dude! Whatever you do when you go to England, don’t say “bloody.” I didn’t know what a filthy swear word this was there until I started tossing it around among believers one day. Woah!
Back to Piper’s comments. I’m interested in going through them myself just to see what insights might come from engaging him.
On to Genesis six. Get back to me anybody. I want to know where I’m missing it here.
I don’t have T. Fretheim here with me to refer to, but I imagine he speaks to this passage. I’ll check him later. Others have capably defended an open take understanding of it. I just wanted to comment on a couple of things:
Piper: 1. In view of the warning in 1 Samuel 15:29 that, "The Glory of Israel will not lie or repent; he is not a man, that he should repent," we are slow to attribute human-like repentance to God.
Tom: Being “slow” to attribute human-like repentance go God is commendable. But does Piper ever attribute such a change of mind to God? He does not.
In any case, 1Sam. 15.29 in its context is clearly an example of “changing one’s mind about having changed one’s mind.” Though such Clinton-like (sorry Dem’s) flip-flopping is characteristic of how humans often change their minds, God (v. 29 claims) isn’t like THIS. It doesn’t mean that God never genuinely changes his mind as humans understand this to mean.
Piper:2. Rather it is plausible to find a "strange" repentance that is unlike anything we experience, namely, that God regrets what he foreknew - that the human race would fall into sin and be in need of a savior.
Tom: Strange indeed. A repentance that is “unlike anything we experience.” This removes it even from the category of anthropomorphism/anthropopathism. It is in a category of its own.
That God foreknew as certain the human race would fall into sin and need a savior is in fact insisted upon by many open theists (right Modes?), but not by all. Still, how plausible is regretting what one foreknows or, rather, from Piper’s point of view (?), what one predetermines? That this is the case is certainly not stated or implied anywhere in the passage itself. Piper brings it in from elsewhere.
Piper: 3. We are led to believe that God did foreknow this because of 2 Timothy 1:9 "God has saved us and called us with a holy calling, not according to our works, but according to His own purpose and grace which was granted us in Christ Jesus from all eternity." If the grace we needed in Christ was foreknown (even planned) from eternity, then the fall and the misery of man was known too.
Tom: Not necessarily. Just what was foreknown as certain, and how it was foreknown, by God prior to creation is still an matter of discussion among open theists. For myself, I’m not yet convinced that God’s grace would not have been necessary to us as finite humans even had we not fallen. God predetermining his grace as the means by which finite human would come into the fullness of knowing and loving him does not in itself require the cross. It came to mean the cross (this open viewer argues) when sin entered the human race.
Those open theists who believe God eternally foreknew as certain that humankind would fall, or even that God’s ultimate vision for us required a fall, have a much harder time I think answering Piper. What is claimed in such cases is that though God knew eternally that we would sin and come to need the Cross (as a matter of fact), God did not know to what depths we would submerge ourselves in sin. And since God is sorrowful over the “extent” to which humankind had become sinful, it does not conflict with the claim that God foreknew we would in fact sin. I don’t go this route, but it does permit one to maintain a partly open future on the basis of Gen. 6 while agreeing with conventional theism that sin, the fall, and the cross were eternally foreknown to God as certain.
The problem I have with this particular open view approach to Gen. 6 is simple. The text doesn’t say God was “sorry that man sinned so much” (though he doubtless was). It explicitly says God was “sorry the he [God] made humankind.” I take this to mean the God regretted having started the project in the first place. That’s way out there I know. And if the text said anything other than what it actually said perhaps I could go with other open viewers who locate God’s passion here all in the mere fact of the “extent” of human sin. God is sorrowful over this, yes, but what does he regret? He regrets “creating humanity.” Whew. This I think implies something significant about what God believed was and was not possible prior to creation.
Piper: 4. In 1 Chronicles 29:18 David prays for the people after they have so willingly given to build the temple: "O LORD, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Israel, our fathers, preserve this forever in the intentions of the heart of Thy people, and direct their heart to Thee." This phrase is the same as the one in Genesis 6:5 but here it seems as if David assumes that God can govern what "intents of the heart" we have. If so, we should not assume too quickly that God can't know what they are in the future.
Tom: Hmmm. Gen. 6.5 has, “Then the LORD saw that…that every intent of the thoughts of peoples’ heart was only evil continually.” 1Chr 29.18 has, “O Lord, preserve this forever in the intentions of the heart of your people, and direct their heart to you.” Of course, Piper, I assume, believes God “governs” all our thoughts and dispositions so as to bring about his foreknown future. For him the Hebrew verbs “preserve” and “guide/direct” mean absolute control. But do either suggest that God necessarily knows the outcome should he decide to answer this prayer? I don’t see that it does. David appears to be asking God to do all he can to insure that Israel never forgets “these things.” Does this guarantee they’ll never forget, or that their heart will always be directed to or set upon God? The Old Testament is right there. Read it. Did Israel forget? Yes. Was Israel’s heart forever set upon God? No. Piper has to conclude that God didn’t answer David’s prayer.
Then again, perhaps God did do all he could, but this did not rule out the possibility of Israel’s choosing to live forgetful of their past or choosing to live in ways that hardened their heart and dulled their senses. David’s prayer is complex because his request concerns matters of the heart. He asks God to do a spiritual work in people. We can ask for this. And our prayers can (in whatever way prayer mysteriously releases power and partners with God to accomplish what God cannot/does not/will not  accomplish without them) bring great influence to bear upon those we pray for, but it cannot make them less than persons. God and we can partner together in prayer to the fullest extant and still NOT see what we both desire when the object of our prayers are other free-willed persons.
God powerfully influencing our hearts and intentions and seeking to safeguard us and keep us close to him is one thing, but this does not require us to assume that what God seeks to do or attempts to bring about always happens. The hearts God seeks to direct sometimes stubbornly wander from him. Piper’s assuming that God “guiding” our hearts (in 1Ch 29) means God “determines” our hearts. Why am I not surprised?
Piper: 5. I propose that God created the world already feeling both the joy of this final salvation and the grief of the intervening fall and misery. When the fall and misery reached a height in Genesis 6:6 it is not unfitting for God to express this sorrow the way he does.
Tom: There’s nothing else Piper can propose. If you come to Gen. 6 already believing that God knows eternally all that is to come, what else can one say? Again, certain passages (those which depict God as knowing some future event) are handpicked and made the rule by which other passages (passages which depict God as not knowing some future event) are either allowed to contribute after a good deal of qualification (and the qualification is always one-directional, from “settled” passages to “open” passages) to our understanding of God’s knowledge of the future or judged to not have anything to contribute at all.
The notion that God is, or has been, eternally experiencing all the joy, sorrow, regret, anger, and love he will ever feel and that God has just decided to “express” it here for us seems to me highly contrived and forced. But I’m certainly open to hearing arguments for how this makes sense or is meaningful to any who want to comment. One question though, since God is “timeless” and experiences all of history timelessly, does Piper suppose that God will continue into eternity feeling all these things?
Finally, Piper (if I understand his views correctly) is not an adherent of simple foreknowledge. He does not believe the future “informs” God, but rather that God informs, i.e. determines, the future. He posits two wills in God to escape the obvious conclusion that God both wills and does not will the same events. God determines what he regrets. God rejoices over the “wise purposes” which these regretful events bring about by his own design.
One last thought. Piper claims God eternally feels sorrow over the depth of human sin in Gen. 6. But, as I mentioned above, the text claims that God regretted “having made humankind.” This is more significant that feeling bad about their sin. Does Piper claim God eternally regrets making humans? And being timelessly eternal, won’t God be regretting that he made us forever?
Tom
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whasssuuuppp
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Date Joined Aug 2001
Total Posts : 210
| Posted 11/6/2001 9:52 PM (GMT -6) | | Hi Tom,
hey, thanks for putting so much time into this! It's fun to read. A couple things stuck out to me as I read your last post. First, you said this:
quote:
That God foreknew as certain the human race would fall into sin and need a savior is in fact insisted upon by many open theists (right Modes?), but not by all. Still, how plausible is regretting what one foreknows or, rather, from Piper’s point of view (?), what one predetermines?
I can't at all wrap my head around the idea that God can regret what God predetermines. From what I've read, I think the whole "two wills" idea addresses this paradox...but taken at face value, what does it really mean for God to regret something that he had FULL control over? Granted in Piper's view, God predestines the fall (to the point of regretting that he made humans, even, somehow...) to bring GLORY to himself...and then "regrets" the consequences of his own actions, because God's glory apparently cannot be revealed without the attributes of God's wrath. Am I totally off on this? But if God determines all, then why not just determine that God can be glorious WITHOUT his wrath being revealed? I wouldn't think that'd be such a hard thing for God to do. But anyways...the point I really wanted to make here was not all of those ramblings but this--It does seem that it would be more plausible to say that God regretted what he foreknew, rather than God regretted what he foreordained. At least with the former you avoid a certain portrait of God "I eternally foreordain this...but I'm sorry I did it...oops." Apparently this is the "strange repentence" Piper talks about:
quote:
Piper:2. Rather it is plausible to find a "strange" repentance that is unlike anything we experience, namely, that God regrets what he foreknew - that the human race would fall into sin and be in need of a savior.
But like Tom said, Piper, in his view, has to say that God regrets what he foreordained, not just what he foreknew.
Tom:
quote:
One last thought. Piper claims God eternally feels sorrow over the depth of human sin in Gen. 6. But, as I mentioned above, the text claims that God regretted “having made humankind.” This is more significant that feeling bad about their sin. Does Piper claim God eternally regrets making humans? And being timelessly eternal, won’t God be regretting that he made us forever?
Those are two really interesting points, things I hadn't thought about before. Hmmm...
From the ramblings of a sleepy one...
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If we are going to change the world at all we must first be a little crazy.
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Tom
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| Posted 11/7/2001 6:45 AM (GMT -6) | | Yo Wasssuuupp! You said:quote:
I can't at all wrap my head around the idea that God can regret what God predetermines. From what I've read, I think the whole "two wills" idea addresses this paradox...but taken at face value, what does it really mean for God to regret something that he had FULL control over?
Exactly.quote:
But if God determines all, then why not just determine that God can be glorious WITHOUT his wrath being revealed? I wouldn't think that'd be such a hard thing for God to do.
Others on this forum doubtless know Piper than I, but my hunch is Piper would simply reply that God’s grace and mercy appear far more praiseworthy when set against the backdrop of the fall and hell. I think of the kind of white photocopy paper I prefer using in my office. You buy a ream of white paper and it “looks” really white. But then set it next to a more expensive brand and the first sheet turns out to be a little yellow. You wouldn’t—in fact couldn’t—have noticed had you not had the “whiter” sheet to compare it to. Set it against a black backdrop and you reeeally come to have a sense of how “white” white can be.
I believe this is part of what Piper and others are getting at when they suggest evil and human sin were predestined “in order to display the glory of God.” They would argue that when set against the backdrop of evil and sin, God’s glory is shown/displayed more vibrantly. The contrast highlights God’s grace more.
Add to this the fact that some attributes of God simply cannot be revealed AT ALL apart from evil and sin. God can’t be revealed as a “healer” if there aren’t some “sick” people to heal, can’t “forgive” if there aren’t some “guilty” people to forgive.
I have doubts about this whole approach:
First, Scripture nowhere explicitly describes the God-world relationship in such terms.
Secondly, Scripture everywhere, in explicit terms and by implication, tells us God is fundamentally, by nature, opposed to sin and evil. He fights it with every resource he has and aligns himself in fundamental opposition to sin and evil. If God fundamentally requires evil and sin to enhance his glory, wouldn’t one expect to find Scripture saying as much? If he doesn’t fundamentally require evil and sin to enhance his glory, then why has he chosen to do so?
Thirdly, does Piper’s “two wills” theory really “fix” anything? Isn’t a God who has two wills, each of which are aligned in fundamental opposition to each other, just as conflicted as a God who unites both these opposing entities in one will? It’s not JUST about God’s volition. OK, so God has two “wills”; what about the overflow of these two opposing forces in terms of God’s emotions, mind, relationships, etc.? Would not these be affected as well? Would not God’s entire inner life or nature be fundamentally conflicted, a house divided against itself? If two wills is required to account for God “wanting” evil and “not wanting” evil, wouldn’t God have to have two separate capacities for experiencing emotions so that he could feel both sorrow and joy over evil? Two separate minds for planning and thinking how best to carry out what each separate “will” has determined? But if God can “think” and “feel” AS ONE with regard to the fundamentally opposed entities of sin and goodness in the world, why can God not “will” AS ONE with regard to these? Sorry Piper, but your two wills proposal doesn’t solve anything.
Fourthly, I don’t have the intellectual wherewithal to consider philosophically whether or not this whole understanding of God doesn’t undermine the “integrity” of the God-world relationship. My hunch is it that it turns what we believe (on the basis of Scripture) to be genuine “relatedness” to God into something less than genuine relatedness. If God exercises Piper’s kind of exhaustive control over all of history, predetermining most for Hell so that those who go to heaven have something against which they can compare how good God has really been, glorifying him all the more, then I seriously doubt one can simultaneously claim that the personal relationships we believe ourselves to have with God are indeed “real,” that they possess genuine “integrity.”
Lastly, the logic behind Piper’s argument seems to imply that whatever attribute God is capable of exhibiting he must exhibit. I don’t know if Piper would insist that God was free in choosing to create the world as he did, but Piper also argues that God’s glory can only be really “glorious” if evil and sin exist. This sounds like a disguised “must” to me. Were Piper to admit that God’s glory can be adequately revealed apart from sin and evil then he’d have to explain why he feels we aren’t actually living in such a world now (i.e., the world as understood by the open view), especially given #’s 1 and 2 above.
What’s so glorious about a glory that requires sin and evil to reveal itself? And if this glory doesn’t actually require sin and evil to reveal itself, then what’s so glorious about God choosing to go this route? And if God measures such things in fundamentally different ways from us (i.e., if he’s NOT omnibenevolent and is just doing this with reference to himself) then a) what’s so glorious about all of it TO US, and b) in what ways do we “image” God if not in our morality (now that our morality no longer reliably points to God)? And if God’s not interested in it being glorious TO US, then in what sense is his glory a REVELATION? Who is God revealing himself to anyway?
Doc, if you’re around I’d like knowing very quickly if this last paragraph is on target?
Tom
Edited by - tgb on 11/07/2001 11:48:59 AM | | Back to Top | | |
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geej
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Date Joined Jul 2001
Total Posts : 93
| Posted 11/7/2001 4:43 PM (GMT -6) | | After reading what has been attributed to Piper I have two observations; feel free to correct me if I'm wrong.
A. He seems to be reading A LOT into what Scripture MEANS. It seems as though Greg's interpretation is cleaner and more in line with the texts themselves. If God "meant" what Piper says He meant, God sounds manipulative...like the "puppet master" God view that drove me from the church for awhile.
B. It seems that Piper spends a lot of time attempting to prove Greg wrong on SOMETHING. Wouldn't you think that if he were secure in his exegesis and theological conclusions that he'd let the chips fall where they may and let the arguments speak for themselves?
Just a couple of thoughts.
GJ
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whasssuuuppp
Registered Member
Date Joined Aug 2001
Total Posts : 210
| Posted Yesterday 11:22 AM (GMT -6) | | Hi Tom, you said this:
quote:
Thirdly, does Piper’s “two wills” theory really “fix” anything? Isn’t a God who has two wills, each of which are aligned in fundamental opposition to each other, just as conflicted as a God who unites both these opposing entities in one will? It’s not JUST about God’s volition. OK, so God has two “wills”; what about the overflow of these two opposing forces in terms of God’s emotions, mind, relationships, etc.? Would not these be affected as well? Would not God’s entire inner life or nature be fundamentally conflicted, a house divided against itself? If two wills is required to account for God “wanting” evil and “not wanting” evil, wouldn’t God have to have two separate capacities for experiencing emotions so that he could feel both sorrow and joy over evil? Two separate minds for planning and thinking how best to carry out what each separate “will” has determined? But if God can “think” and “feel” AS ONE with regard to the fundamentally opposed entities of sin and goodness in the world, why can God not “will” AS ONE with regard to these? Sorry Piper, but your two wills proposal doesn’t solve anything.
You know what's interesting? How similar this "two-wills" theory sounds to multiple personality disorder (MPD)--which is now usually referred to as dissociative identity disorder. In school now I'm studying psychiatry and this has come up a few times. The basic premise is this: all of us, to some extend, behave differently in different environments and in our interactions with different people. This in itself is a good and necessary thing. People with MPD, for some reason, divide these differing interactions into distinct personalities that further develop distinct characteristics. It's truly a bizarre disorder. Each personality can be very, very different from the next. Different beliefs, different interactions with the world, different demeanors, different voices (yep, even that), etc. My book defines it as the presence of "at least two separate personalities within an individual." We don't call these people God (though they may sometimes think they God!), we call them psychologically diseased. But...having said all that, I realize that I could be mistaken about God's two wills being as distinct as two separate personalities. I know my opinion of it is going to differ from other's out there, so please don't get offended by this description. I'm just playing around, trying to find ways to integrate the theology here with the medical stuff I'm learning!
quote:
Lastly, the logic behind Piper’s argument seems to imply that whatever attribute God is capable of exhibiting he must exhibit. I don’t know if Piper would insist that God was free in choosing to create the world as he did, but Piper also argues that God’s glory can only be really “glorious” if evil and sin exist. This sounds like a disguised “must” to me. Were Piper to admit that God’s glory can be adequately revealed apart from sin and evil then he’d have to explain why he feels we aren’t actually living in such a world now (i.e., the world as understood by the open view), especially given #’s 1 and 2 above.
I agree--I'll echo by what I said above:
quote:
But if God determines all, then why not just determine that God can be glorious WITHOUT his wrath being revealed? I wouldn't think that'd be such a hard thing for God to do.
To answer: "because God's love can't be appreciated without his wrath being displayed" is to miss the point. Why think this in the first place?
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GODesteem
Registered Member
Date Joined Jun 2001
Total Posts : 34
| Posted Yesterday 2:38 PM (GMT -6) | | Hi Tom... I apologize in advance for not writing a more detailed response, although the way things are going, I wonder if it is worth it anymore. I for one, am frustrated at how Mr. Piper's words have somehow lead into an all out smattering of philisophical musings (pardon my lack of diction), many of which simply avoid the issue at hand. Basically, noone has even attempted to offer a different proposal for the multitude of texts which support the idea of "two wills" in God. All I have read is how God is somehow suffering from multiple personality disorder! This is, frankly, a sad argument against what the Bible is communicating. For one thing, why has noone provided a source to Piper's article?
Tom wrote:
"Thirdly, does Piper’s “two wills” theory really “fix” anything? Isn’t a God who has two wills, each of which are aligned in fundamental opposition to each other, just as conflicted as a God who unites both these opposing entities in one will? It’s not JUST about God’s volition. OK, so God has two “wills”; what about the overflow of these two opposing forces in terms of God’s emotions, mind, relationships, etc.? Would not these be affected as well? Would not God’s entire inner life or nature be fundamentally conflicted, a house divided against itself? If two wills is required to account for God “wanting” evil and “not wanting” evil, wouldn’t God have to have two separate capacities for experiencing emotions so that he could feel both sorrow and joy over evil? Two separate minds for planning and thinking how best to carry out what each separate “will” has determined? But if God can “think” and “feel” AS ONE with regard to the fundamentally opposed entities of sin and goodness in the world, why can God not “will” AS ONE with regard to these? Sorry Piper, but your two wills proposal doesn’t solve anything."
Ben's response:
An interesting reference is found in Piper's article:
"Jonathan Edwards wrote 250 years ago, "The Arminians ridicule the distinction between the secret and revealed will of God, or, more properly expressed, the distinction between the decree and the law of God; because we say he may decree one thing, and command another. And so, they argue, we hold a contrariety in God, as if one will of his contradicted another."
Piper responds to the above quote as follows:
"But in spite of these criticisms the distinction stands, not because of a logical or theological deduction, but because it is inescapable in the Scriptures."
Exactly! Instead of us attempting to use our fallible, wicked minds (though we are being renewed day by day) to go too far beyond the Scriptures, why can't we simply go as far as possible and submit to what God has revealed about Himself?
Tom also wrote:
"What’s so glorious about a glory that requires sin and evil to reveal itself? And if this glory doesn’t actually require sin and evil to reveal itself, then what’s so glorious about God choosing to go this route? And if God measures such things in fundamentally different ways from us (i.e., if he’s NOT omnibenevolent and is just doing this with reference to himself) then a) what’s so glorious about all of it TO US, and b) in what ways do we “image” God if not in our morality (now that our morality no longer reliably points to God)? And if God’s not interested in it being glorious TO US, then in what sense is his glory a REVELATION? Who is God revealing himself to anyway?"
Ben's response:
Tom! Just what are you using as a standard to hold God up against? Since when did you become the arbitrator in how God can run His universe?
Oh, by the way, the article is found at:
http://www.desiringgod.org/Online_Library/
OnlineArticles/Subjects/DoctrinesGrace/
2wills.htm
Is it possible that some may need to reread this, before they start making judgements?
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GODesteem
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Date Joined Jun 2001
Total Posts : 34
| Posted Yesterday 2:51 PM (GMT -6) | | Benjamin Musclow aka GODesteem
---------------------------------------------
Greetings to "geej"!
You wrote:
"After reading what has been attributed to Piper I have two observations; feel free to correct me if I'm wrong.
A. He seems to be reading A LOT into what Scripture MEANS. It seems as though Greg's interpretation is cleaner and more in line with the texts themselves. If God "meant" what Piper says He meant, God sounds manipulative...like the "puppet master" God view that drove me from the church for awhile.
B. It seems that Piper spends a lot of time attempting to prove Greg wrong on SOMETHING. Wouldn't you think that if he were secure in his exegesis and theological conclusions that he'd let the chips fall where they may and let the arguments speak for themselves?
Just a couple of thoughts."
My response:
After reading much of the commentary on John Piper's serious attempt to deal with the Bible's complexity (did not Peter mention how Paul's writings were hard to understand??), it is painfully obvious that Mr. Piper needs to be here to defend himself. For one thing, John Piper is not on a crusade to prove Greg Boyd wrong. As far as I have seen, John has decided to let things "cool off" for a while. Since the resolution in the Baptist General Conference, I have read nothing from Piper about the issue of Openness Theology. If you happened to research the whole ordeal, you might come off a little more gracious than your words in "B" above. After all, could not the same argument be made against almost EVERY single post on this message board? Let me put it this way:
It seems that (the open theist) spends a lot of time attempting to prove (John, and other classic theists, INCLUDING Arminians!) wrong about SOMETHING.
Wouldn't you think that if (the open theist) were secure in his (or her) exegesis and theological conclusions that he'd let the chips fall where they may and let the arguments speak for themselves?...
Pondering the value of such discussions...
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geej
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Date Joined Jul 2001
Total Posts : 93
| Posted Yesterday 5:42 PM (GMT -6) | | Godesteem
You have a good point with my point B; but based on what I know when I was at Bethel in 92-93, I still feel that Mr Piper was honing in on Greg. I am glad that he has laid off it recently.
The difference between what we discuss and debate on this board and how Piper and his minions handled the Open View is that the "other side" tried to throw the open theists out of the BGC! In my mind, attempting to elevate an issue to dogma that has no place in that realm.
I once saw Piper debate someone(I'm 98% sure it was Greg)on the issue of women in leadership positions in the church. While I was somewhat offended by his views, I respected his conviction and sincerity; he tries to make solid theological arguments. Unfortunately, his arguments are sometimes illogical to me because he seems to read more meaning into scripture than what I think is there. I often feel as though I were doing intellectual acrobatics to understand his arguments.
Anyway, you made some good arguments and maybe I should attempt to read one of his books. (I admit that I am a bit of a Rottweiler when I perceive people to be enemies of people who have impacted my life [ie: my professors at B, to whom I will always be loyal]. Perhaps it would be more academically sound to read his book without throwing it across a room.)
Geej
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Tom
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| Posted Today 5:52 AM (GMT -6) | | Hi Ben-
Thanks for the response and insight. I enjoy the interaction.
Ben: Hi Tom... I apologize in advance for not writing a more detailed response, although the way things are going, I wonder if it is worth it anymore.
Tom: It’s ALWAYS worth it brother! Don't give up!
Ben: I for one, am frustrated at how Mr. Piper's words have somehow lead into an all out smattering of philisophical musings (pardon my lack of diction), many of which simply avoid the issue at hand.
Tom: Well, OB posted Piper’s comments and wanted to know what others thought about them. That WAS the issue at hand. But you obviously think something else is the “issue at hand.” What would that be?
Ben: Basically, no one has even attempted to offer a different proposal for the multitude of texts which support the idea of "two wills" in God. All I have read is how God is somehow suffering from multiple personality disorder!
Tom: You’ve got to be kidding Ben! In fairness to Wasssuuuppp, he/she(?) didn’t claim it necessarily applied to God. He explicitly said he was just throwing it out for discussion because it popped into his head. That’s all. I’m sure Wasssuuuppp would agree with you that God does NOT suffer from any such personality disorder. The point was that Piper’s “two wills” theory make one wonder whether God would not be internally conflicted in a similar way. You may want to explain how God’s having two wills, as well as thinking and feeling in opposite terms about the same events he’s predestined, is UNLIKE a personality disorder.
But more interestingly, how is it that this personality disorder thing is “ALL [you] have read” on this thread. Now THAT’s amazing. Of all that’s been said, “all” you’ve read is Wassuupp’s comment about personality disorder?
Alternative understandings of the texts we’ve been discussing exist in abundance, Ben. Pick up Doc’s God at War or Satan and the Problem of Evil and check out just the footnotes. There are plenty of references to the sort of alternative proposals you claim no one has even attempted. And in all fairness, once you show in a representative sampling of such texts that the “two wills” view isn’t required to make sense of God’s relationship to the world I think the point is basically made. Naturally one will want to comb through every individual text and work it out, which some folks have done. So, I’m not sure how you can say “no one has even attempted to offer” understandings of such texts that differ from Piper’s. This is so obviously not the case.
Ben: This is, frankly, a sad argument against what the Bible is communicating. For one thing, why has no one provided a source to Piper's article?
Tom: Is this really crucial to what we’re talking about here? I mean, OrthodoxBerean posted Piper’s comments here for discussion. If his original post of Piper’s stuff is inaccurate, then challenge it. Or if there are important footnotes of Piper’s left out in OB’s original post and your feel they’re germane to arguments I’ve made, then by all means bring them in for discussion. For what it’s worth, I have read Piper’s article in its original form. [Didn’t think I had, but turns out that I did have a copy of it.] But OB’s original post of Piper’s stuff is pretty straightforward and easier to handle in this sort of format.
But more importantly, how is “not providing the web address to Piper’s article” an argument against “what the BIBLE is communicating”? Whooooah dude!
Ben: In response to Piper’s comment on Edwards’, namely, that “…in spite of these criticisms the distinction [Edwards makes] stands, not because of a logical or theological deduction, but because it is inescapable in the Scriptures,” you say, “Exactly! Instead of us attempting to use our fallible, wicked minds (though we are being renewed day by day) to go too far beyond the Scriptures, why can't we simply go as far as possible and submit to what God has revealed about Himself?”
Tom: But the debate is about whether or not God has in fact revealed himself as Piper and Edwards have claimed. It is NOT obvious that God has done so. And since Piper openly admits that neither “logical nor theological deduction” have anything to do with concluding that the “two wills” distinction is in fact Scriptural, I’d like to know of one single passage where it is an “inescapable” truth of Scripture. I can’t find one.
Also, I asked, “What’s so glorious about a glory that requires sin and evil to reveal itself? And if this glory doesn’t actually require sin and evil to reveal itself, then what’s so glorious about God choosing to go this route? And if God measures such things in fundamentally different ways from us…then a) what’s so glorious about all of it TO US, and b) in what ways do[oes it leave us] “imaging” God? And if God’s not interested in it being glorious TO US, then in what sense is his glory a REVELATION? Who is God revealing himself to anyway?”
Ben's response: Tom! Just what are you using as a standard to hold God up against? Since when did you become the arbitrator in how God can run His universe?
Tom: First, I can only grasp and understand God’s communication to me with the resources God has given me. If God is the one doing to “revealing” and “communicating,” then certainly he’s taken this into account and has chosen to communicate in a manner MOST LIKELY to insure than I get the point. [Just as an aside, determinist hermeneutics tend to assume the opposite.]
Secondly, all I did was ask “questions,” and honest one’s at that. If you can’t answer them, or don’t want to, then just say so. But don’t accuse me of not appreciating the glory and honor of God or of setting myself up as arbiter of how God must run his universe. I’m not asking GOD these questions. I’m asking YOU these question. I assume that with Piper you claim that the “inescapable” message of the Bible is that it’s all about God’s glory and that this MUST mean, indeed can ONLY mean, that God exhaustively predetermines all things, including the choice to make the majority of people for Hell, so that his glory is revealed all the greater. I’m asking you, assuming that the Bible is God “revealing the glory of this TO US” and “communicating the glory of this TO US,” what is so glorious about it? The inescapable message of Scripture you claim is that it’s glorious for God to exhaustively predetermine all of history, consigning the majority to Hell with an “unconditional” decree. Do tell us what YOU believe to be “glorious” about this. If you don’t know what’s glorious about it, then in what sense has God “revealed” it to you?
Thirdly, to more directly answer your questions, Ben, I’d say we all interpret and make judgments about what people claim with regard to God and his relationship to us based on SOME standard, you included. We don’t form our views willy-nilly. So here are MY standards: Scripture, Reason, Experience, and Tradition. These formed my sources before I ever knew Wesley had done the same. I’d say these four constitute the standard about which you ask (with Scripture towering above them all).
Now, I don’t see where Piper’s determinism is anywhere either an “inescapable” or even a “preferable” view of Scripture. You look at the open view and say, “Hey, by what standard are you measuring God? Who made you the arbiter in telling God how he can run his universe?” but do so on the basis of your own standard and desire to arbitrate the same thing. Hmmm?
When you claim that the God of open theism, a God who chooses to receive the greatest glory from creating us for loving relationships which must be freely chosen, is LESS GLORIOUS than a God who exhaustively and unconditionally determines all things, then you claim to know what most glorifies God and what does not.So now you need to answer your own questions: By what standard are you measuring God? Who made YOU the arbiter in determining how God must run his universe? Who are you to tell God he can’t receive glory from creating us for freely chosen loving relationships? If you’re claiming that Scripture supports your particular understanding of what glorifies God and what doesn’t, then…
…LET’S TALK ABOUT SCRIPTURE! Yeooooow!
Ben: After reading much of the commentary on John Piper's serious attempt to deal with the Bible's complexity (did not Peter mention how Paul's writings were hard to understand??), it is painfully obvious that Mr. Piper needs to be here to defend himself. For one thing, John Piper is not on a crusade to prove Greg Boyd wrong. As far as I have seen, John has decided to let things "cool off" for a while.
Tom: First, I do think Piper is a very “serious” thinker who makes “serious” attempts to deal with the Bible. (I don’t think he’s on a level with Paul, but hey, everybody’s got their favorite author!)
Secondly, in the article we’re discussing, Piper is absolutely out to prove Doc wrong. And that's OK! If Piper decided to let things cool down after writing it, fine. That’s cool! But it doesn’t make a discussion of the article off-limits does it?
Lastly, I earlier thought that by setting aside Piper’s name in bold preceding his comments, making it look like he was here engaging others, others might think we were ganging up on Piper. I’ll try to format things more accurately. But in any event, Ben, it’s not about Piper. It’s about his understanding of these passages argued for in this particular article. What’s the problem? Do you think discussing this article without him around is illegitimate?
Love in Christ,
Tom
Edited by - tgb on 11/09/2001 10:58:55 AM
Edited by - tgb on 11/09/2001 2:25:43 PM | | Back to Top | | |
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DaveSherrill
Registered Member
Date Joined Nov 2001
Total Posts : 5
| Posted 11/10/2001 3:22 AM (GMT -6) | | Geej wrote:
quote:
The difference between what we discuss and debate on this board and how Piper and his minions handled the Open View is that the "other side" tried to throw the open theists out of the BGC! In my mind, attempting to elevate an issue to dogma that has no place in that realm.
[snip]
Anyway, you made some good arguments and maybe I should attempt to read one of his books. (I admit that I am a bit of a Rottweiler when I perceive people to be enemies of people who have impacted my life [ie: my professors at B, to whom I will always be loyal].
Geej
Geej,
First, am I to consider you one of Boyd's "minions"?
Second, your loyalty to your profs is ill-placed loyalty. Professors, even professors at B who impacted your life, can be wrong.
Sincerely,
Dave | | Back to Top | | |
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