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If I get a miraculous deliverance, it could be in three contexts...

1) God just wanted you delivered and made a UNILATERAL choice to do so...negating all other factors effectively.

2) God wanted you delivered and, via EXTREMELY PERSUASIVE means (possibly even working compatibilistically), used other agents to do so.

3) God was able to work among the creational factors in a situation, and given things were aligned properly, God was able to deliver you.

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When it comes to number three though Meph, I'd want to ask again if (from our perspective) we aren't sure if God is working through number one or two, then, wouldn't it make the most sense to be always trying to align things (fix the tv in such a way) in order for means number three to bring about the miracle?

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In the context of Carlie, if someone were to ask me why this happened, as it related to God (like "Where was God??), I could say:

1) For some good purpose that we cannot grasp or understand, God wanted Carlie to get caught up...and God made it happened.

2) For some good purpose that we cannot grasp or understand, God wanted Carlie to get caught up...and God USED other agents (possibly self-solidified) to make it happen.

3) God wanted ANYTHING BUT Carlie getting caught up, but because God, in this situation, gave a LARGE amount of "agency space"...AND the factors were NOT in God's favor...God couldn't help Carlie be delivered.

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Nope, I can't do it. There is something about God's fruit (the fruit of HIS spirit) that tells me no - this act of evil can not be for some higher good purpose than that which we could readily recognize. If we can know "them" by their fruit, surely we can know HIM by His fruit.

Again, just like love, we have to take God/Jesus and the HS for what we SEE in scripture. God is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, gentleness, faithfulness and self control. How then can HE look like anything else in His actions today?

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Originally posted by MephEternal

Tom:

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But, Mephi, your view is just as much a broken down TV as ours is. Even in your case (where God has secret divine purposes he brings into play sometimes), it’s STILL true that when I get healed or delivered miraculously by God, I just got lucky. Not only did all the factors Doc and I posit come together, but now all the factors Doc and I posit PLUS all the unrevealed purposes God has variously going which you posit come together, which means when I’m healed in your world I’m MORE lucky than when I’m healed in my world, for you put MORE into play. Best go FIX YO TV! Kadabaka shandalalala! I'm takin BACK what the devil done stole from ME! Count my dominos and Gimme my money!

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Nope. Ya miscounted, Tom. If I get a miraculous deliverance, it could be in three contexts...

1) God just wanted you delivered and made a UNILATERAL choice to do so...negating all other factors effectively.

2) God wanted you delivered and, via EXTREMELY PERSUASIVE means (possibly even working compatibilistically), used other agents to do so.

3) God was able to work among the creational factors in a situation, and given things were aligned properly, God was able to deliver you.

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Originally posted by moon_river_j

Thank you for that reply Kingsaint. And your final question (above). Theology's ultimate test, where "the water hits the wheel" so to speak, is how it plays out in the life a believer (reason and experience). Theology is important, but like the gifts of the spirit, if it does not show the love of God, then it is like a "clanging cymbal."

and

"Whatever theology we hold to, it has to "work" in people's lives and most of all, it has to point to a loving Saviour.

Thinking,
Jo-Anne

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Originally posted by TGB

Jo-Ann: Do you believe God has plan A, B, C etc?

Tom: Yeah. Jer. 18.1-10. God says, "If a, then b, or if c, then d." Here ya go: http://www.gregboyd.org/gbfront/Custom/4/Documents/beltstudies.htm

Tom

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Originally posted by BBBCanada

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Originally posted by moon_river_j

Thank you for that reply Kingsaint. And your final question (above). Theology's ultimate test, where "the water hits the wheel" so to speak, is how it plays out in the life a believer (reason and experience). Theology is important, but like the gifts of the spirit, if it does not show the love of God, then it is like a "clanging cymbal."

and

"Whatever theology we hold to, it has to "work" in people's lives and most of all, it has to point to a loving Saviour.

Thinking,
Jo-Anne

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God's love is not in question even in Meph Man's view. Why must love be like what you can see humans (and other species of creation) do? If there is such a thing as "tough love" on a human level it is possible that it is there on a metaphysical level beyond what we can comprehend.

Hey Brandon,

I apologize for not being clear. I have no doubt that God's love is not in question here. What I meant to say (if I may be clearer than mud this time) is that what is most important is that whatever view we embrace, that we communicate it with the love of God. I see that here, but have experienced otherwise where believers feel they must superimpose their beliefs on others and often end up sounding like the "clanging cymbal" of Corinthians. I appreciate this discussion board. Until a week ago I had no idea that something like this existed. I have been reading Dr Boyd's books for the past year and a half as well as Sanders and Pinnock and am glad to have a place to hear the O.V. discussed as well as hear about other views. I love the dialogue. I also love reading and discussing books by Larry Crabb and John Eldredge.

I have changed so much in the past two years in how I see the Father and I love this journey that we're on.

God Bless,
Jo-Anne

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Mephi: Nope. Ya miscounted, Tom. If I get a miraculous deliverance, it could be in three contexts...

1) God just wanted you delivered and made a UNILATERAL choice to do so...negating all other factors effectively.

2) God wanted you delivered and, via EXTREMELY PERSUASIVE means (possibly even working compatibilistically), used other agents to do so.

3) God was able to work among the creational factors in a situation, and given things were aligned properly, God was able to deliver you.

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Mephi: Tom, your and Doc's view basically has things ALWAYS being in the category where the "agency space" is something God has to work with. And I understand why: Because THAT's the main thing that holds the theodicy together. THAT's the insight of process theology that makes it work. You have to say that it is NEVER the case that God can do unilateral actions. But once you posit that God CAN do unilateral action, despite ALL free-willed factors even only SOMETIMES, then you have the problem of evil all over again because now it's POSSIBLE for God to make maximization of Creation's aesthetic value a secondary consideration to another, more specific, divine purpose of God. And THAT messes up the whole theodicy.

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Mephi: And I will cry this from the mountaintops. Heh.

Now, gimme MY money!

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Selah: There is something about God's fruit (the fruit of HIS spirit) that tells me no - this act of evil can not be for some higher good purpose than that which we could readily recognize. If we can know "them" by their fruit, surely we can know HIM by His fruit.

Mephi: Here's the problem, Selah. Given what we understand about chaos theory and butterfly effects, how can we really say that redemptive or "good" outcomes ONLY exist if WE are readily able to recognize them?

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BBCanada: If God CAN do option #1 then why would he have to be "concerned" with options #2 and #3 in ANY scenario?

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BBCanada (to Jo-Anne): God's love is not in question even in Meph Man's view. Why must love be like what you can see humans (and other species of creation) do? If there is such a thing as "tough love" on a human level it is possible that it is there on a metaphysical level beyond what we can comprehend?

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I contend that what you object to is that Doc and Tom are presumptuous in telling you what God's good purposes actually are in specific cases (9-11, Carlie). However, are you not presumptuous in thinking that God is not behind every single act of bigotry?

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Of course, you can claim that you really are agnostic about the source of evil in particular acts of bigotry. But I would retort that this is a feigned, merely theoretical, agnosticism. I claim that you pragmatically act in such a manner that we could conclude that you do not believe that God could be behind every act of bigotry. In fact, if you were honest I bet you did not even ENTERTAIN the possibility that God was behind every act of bigotry until I pointed out the possibility.

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My point still stands. If you get healed under (1), you got lucky that God wanted to act unilaterally—he doesn’t always do so. In this case it’s not luck that God was able to bring about your healing once he decided to do so unilaterally; it’s luck that God decided to act unilaterally in your case THIS time. If you get healed under (2), you got lucky that God used others compatibilistically to bring about your healing—God doesn’t always do so. In this case it’s not luck that God was able to bring about your healing through others acting compatibilistically to heal you; it’s luck that God decided to act compatibilistically in your case THIS time. And if you got healed under (3), you’re just plain lucky! (3) is where Doc and I are and you said that’s always luck, right?

So it still appears to me that since you put MORE into play than I do, you’re luckier than I am when good things happen to you. Positing the belief that God sometimes just chooses to heal us unilaterally doesn’t rule out luck. It increases it, because God only so acts SOMETIMES.

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Selah: Number two, even though I believe it could be true, I struggle with it a little. God is going to accomplish this good and loving purpose through whatever means He can. I guess He can/will use force and override free will if necessary. However, in my opinion, if that's the case, this makes believing in FW at all totally moot.

Tom: It also leaves us denying (which Mephi has already argued we must do) that our loving doesn’t require libertarian free will. God can override the variables (our free will) and bring it about that we “love” others in some specific situation. I’m not buying this camel.

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Selah’s point (a very good one!) doesn’t require that we always be able to recognize every good outcome. Some good goes by without OUR noticing. The point is, what about the fruit we DO recognize. Do good trees bare bad fruit? I guess now they sometimes do, if God decides that’s what he needs, he unilaterally brings it about.

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BBCanada: If God CAN do option #1 then why would he have to be "concerned" with options #2 and #3 in ANY scenario?

Tom: That’s one question we might ask Mephi. My guess is, God just wanted it that way. God wanted (for reasons beyond love and goodness, for these only define the variables of God’s actions SOME of the time) to only act unilaterally sometimes and be limited by our freedom other times. And God decides on a case by case basis which is which.

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Oh but I think God’s love IS in question in Mephi’s view (unless, which is possible, I simply don’t get Mephi’s view), for the unrevealed divine purposes that sometimes kick into play in Mephi’s view kick into play over and against love and goodness. That’s the whole point. Mephi wants to avoid saying “divine glory through maximized love and goodness and minimized evil” is the overarching and all-defining purpose. Everything in your analogy turns on the meaning of “beyond what we can comprehend.” What is it we don’t comprehend? Is it that we sometimes don’t comprehend HOW God is at work the circumstances of our lives to bring about THE GOOD (which is all Doc and I wanna say God always does, which is what Rom 8 appears to claim outright, hmmm), or is it that we don’t comprehend whether God is at work in the circumstances of our lives to bring about THE GOOD or whether he’s at work bringing about something else, something “beyond” love and goodness. What’s might that be? Evil? Oh no. We don’t wanna say that. So we don’t wanna say God ever does evil (because God is love) and we don’t wanna say God always does good (because that boxes God up and makes him finite). Sheeesh.

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Hey ya'll, find a theodicy that helps YOU love suffering people and affirm their worth and value to God then go for it. If believing God sometimes has purposes that are other than loving and good and that involve him in bringing about evil compatibilistically, OK. Let's get out there and love people.

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Would you really counsel Carlie's parents that God caused Carlie's murder for his own unilateral purposes? That's the issue.

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But God doesn’t always decide to make a way out of no way. Sometimes in response to feverish desperate faithful prayer God decides NOT to make a way. Sometimes he decides TO make a way. If you pray and God decides that he’ll make a way out of no way, then you got lucky. He doesn’t always do so.

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I said you believed libertarian free will was not necessary to our loving others, that God COULD if he wanted to bring it about that we love others without our doing so libertarianly.

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I look at Carlie and (without the context) would say, “This is evil.” What is so hard about that? I look at 9/11 and conclude, “This is evil.” Kidnapping to torture, rape, and murder somebody is evil. And this is the case even if God was compatibilistically involved in switching the tracks to avoid a greater evil. I think our conclusions about the details and level of God’s involvement in the event are contextual. But I can’t imagine any context, ANY at all, in which kidnapping and murdering Carlie would NOT be evil. Are you saying you can?

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Originally posted by TGB

Jo-Ann: Do you believe God has plan A, B, C etc?

Tom: Yeah. Jer. 18.1-10. God says, "If a, then b, or if c, then d." Here ya go: http://www.gregboyd.org/gbfront/Custom/4/Documents/beltstudies.htm

Tom

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Originally posted by TGB

[quote]
Selah: Ok, now we're talkin'. See, for me, number one represents God trumping the variables in order for God to do what God can/wants to do. (In this case a miraculous deliverence - which is a good and loving purpose)… I have to believe this is possible no matter what Doc and Tom say ;). but, I also think it's an exception to the rule (miracle).

Tom: Why “must” this be the case? Because it limits God’s actions too much? Is that it? It just wouldn’t be right for God to NOT exercise unilateral control of things SOMETIMES? And if it is the case, why “must” it be only an exception?

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Selah:Ok, now we're talkin'. See, for me, number one represents God trumping the variables in order for God to do what God can/wants to do. (In this case a miraculous deliverence - which is a good and loving purpose)… I have to believe this is possible no matter what Doc and Tom say ;). but, I also think it's an exception to the rule (miracle).

Tom: Why “must” this be the case? Because it limits God’s actions too much? Is that it? It just wouldn’t be right for God to NOT exercise unilateral control of things SOMETIMES? And if it is the case, why “must” it be only an exception?

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Selah: Number two, even though I believe it could be true, I struggle with it a little. God is going to accomplish this good and loving purpose through whatever means He can. I guess He can/will use force and override free will if necessary. However, in my opinion, if that's the case, this makes believing in FW at all totally moot.

Tom: It also leaves us denying (which Mephi has already argued we must do) that our loving doesn’t require libertarian free will. God can override the variables (our free will) and bring it about that we “love” others in some specific situation. I’m not buying this camel.

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Selah: There is something about God's fruit (the fruit of HIS spirit) that tells me no - this act of evil can not be for some higher good purpose than that which we could readily recognize. If we can know "them" by their fruit, surely we can know HIM by His fruit.

Mephi: Here's the problem, Selah. Given what we understand about chaos theory and butterfly effects, how can we really say that redemptive or "good" outcomes ONLY exist if WE are readily able to recognize them?
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Selah’s point (a very good one!) doesn’t require that we always be able to recognize every good outcome. Some good goes by without OUR noticing. The point is, what about the fruit we DO recognize. Do good trees bare bad fruit? I guess now they sometimes do, if God decides that’s what he needs, he unilaterally brings it about.

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