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JEE
Registered Member
Date Joined Jul 2004
Total Posts : 1466
| Posted 1/17/2005 5:28 PM (GMT -6) |   | | The assertion has often been made in this forum that God "does all he can to limit evil," etc., and I still have to say that I find the idea unpersuasive. Just because God is omnipotent doesn't mean He does all things, and just because He is benevolent doesn't mean he always works to limit evil in each and every instance. Talk about a limited concept of God.
I do find it interesting, however, that for some people the Open View might tend to downgrade or even destroy their faith in God for temporal deliverance; in my mind, the fact that the future is not set in stone has always provided a powerful incentive to faith, hope, and love, even before I ever came across a formal presentation of the Open View.
Maybe victoryword, our resident Word of Faith guy,  will chime in on this. I'd like to hear if he has found the OV to be detrimental to his faith.
For me, as a classical trinitarian Pentecostal who never was a "Word of Faith" believer, but as one who has been blessed to see some simply amazing miracles in my lifetime, the Open View of the future has always made perfect sense to me, ever since I first came across it. It never occurred to me to be something that might degrade my faith. If anything, the idea that the future is absolutely predetermined (and therefore directly willed by God to be precisely as it is) has always been a thought that made my faith (trust in God) completely wither. And the same goes for the thought that God is always doing all he can to limit evil. To my mind, that makes God out to be pretty weak.
I do find the warfare worldview problematic in some fundamental ways, but the fact that the future is able to some degree to be influenced by us, that prayer can indeed change things, has always been a very faith-building concept to my mind. The Open View has never once caused me to doubt God's ability to deliver from temporal problems.
JohnPost Edited (JEE) : 1/17/2005 5:07:28 PM (GMT-6) | | Back to Top | | |
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Tom
Registered Member
Date Joined Jul 2001
Total Posts : 10353
| Posted 1/17/2005 6:37 PM (GMT -6) | | Hi all-
Rats. Last time I saw this thread it was only one page. So I wrote this and just got on to post it and see there are two more pages. This is long and I’m sorry. I was on a plane over the Atlantic writing it and got out of control! Now I’m too tired to edit it down. It just kept growing. I’m not sure I’m seeing the issues rightly, but I’ll try. I’m looking for answers too. Keep in mind I haven't yet read pages 2 and 3.
Selah was ‘confused’ by (1) the fact that “faith” is primary, that it amounts to believing in and acting upon things which “reason” alone cannot demonstrate to be true, regarding which “reason” alone cannot remove all possible doubt and deliver us objective proof, and (2) by the fact that in a fallen, conflicted, screwed-up world Christ remains faithful.
There doesn’t seem to me to be anything confusing about (1). That is, there doesn’t seem to be anything confusing about the fact that much of life—especially but not only our relationship with an unseen God—should require more than just “reason” alone. Faith, trust, and risk-taking are how we appear to be designed to function (which, interestingly, is a conclusion about ourselves we can reach by “reasoning”). Regarding (2), same thing. There doesn’t seem to be anything confusing about Christ’s actually being faithful, and being experienced by us as being faithful, in our sinful world.
So I’m guessing what’s confusing you, Selah, is affirming BOTH (1) and (2). But I have to confess that I don’t see what’s confusing about our being “faith” creatures AND our experiencing Christ as faithful in a fallen world? Where’s the difficulty? As I talk through it I’m sure I’ll fall into it. Don’t mind me.
Then, there’s Mephi’s question (essentially) about Heb. 12: “7Endure hardship as discipline; God is treating you as sons. For what son is not disciplined by his father? 8If you are not disciplined (and everyone undergoes discipline), then you are illegitimate children and not true sons. 9Moreover, we have all had human fathers who disciplined us and we respected them for it. How much more should we submit to the Father of our spirits and live! 10Our fathers disciplined us for a little while as they thought best; but God disciplines us for our good, that we may share in his holiness.”
Mephi asks if the author here could be “choos[ing] to interpret the ‘hardship’ that the Christian audience was facing as DIVINE DISCIPLINE unto character development. In other words, the author was saying that the free actions of persecutors were actually a means by which GOD was displining his people. Was THIS willed interpretation of the persecution AN ACT OF FAITH in God?...How is this not different from the way that many people REINTERPRET events such that God's good character is preserved in the midst of loss and suffering.”
I may be missing you big-time bro, but I’ll respond for now to what I think you’re saying, OK?
First, look at the assumption you’re making, Mephi, about how believers look at life’s difficulties and continue believing God is good. You just claim they’re “REinterpreting” events in order to preserve their belief in God’s goodness. But what justification is there for calling it a “REinterpretation” (as opposed to just an “interpretation”) at all?
Second, I think there are two different acts of interpretation going on. One is interpreting the words of scripture. The other is interpreting life in view of scripture. The first doesn’t seem to require faith or amount to an act of faith. Atheists can learn Greek and Hebrew, study the cultural and literary context, and for the most part say what the words mean. That’s interpreting the Bible. But the second really does seem to be an act of faith. Once a person does the first act, that is, understand what she believes is a “biblical” worldview (which doesn’t take faith), she then has the choice of making that biblical view HER worldview and acting upon it. THAT interpretation of life—formed by scripture (and other things too)—is very much an act of faith I think, but it doesn’t have to amount to “creative interpreting” (more on that farther down).
What we have in Hebrews 12 is somebody’s interpretation of life in the second sense (an act of faith) which BECOMES (via being God-breathed) more than just one person’s subjective appropriation of truth. As God-breathed, it becomes a written record of the right way to interpret God’s goodness in a bad world. It becomes a truth to BE appropriated by us. (Not sure I’m explaining this well.) But it looks like what’s happening is that God acts in history and reveals himself. But in order for those events to function as a revelation for US the way they did for those who saw them firsthand (without a Bible), there needs to be a trustworthy ‘record’ of those events so that they can live on and do for us what they did for them.
I don’t wanna get off into the debate about scripture and inspiration, but it’s hard to avoid completely. Where one comes down on the questions like ‘What is scripture really?’, ‘What’s it mean for scripture to be God-breathed’, and ‘What do we mean when we call the Bible “God’s Word”?’ really does decide what our options are for understanding what the author of Hebrews (or any other author) intended (if anything) to mean and what authority, if any, that meaning has for us today.
So, back to Mehpi’s question: “Is it possible that faith INCLUDES creative theologizing (in different ways) which JUSTIFIES God in the midst of suffering?” I’m not sure what you’re asking Bro. By “creative” do you mean “made up stuff”? “Fanciful imaginations”? And there’s “…justifies God in the midst of suffering,” which seems to assume a certain view of God and evil. In other words, it seems to me as if you’re assuming God isn’t good and then claiming that people (like the author of Hebrews?) who can’t live with this bare fact about life have to creatively REinterpret or “come up with” some view of life that makes it bearable and exonerates God from being responsible for evil. Not sure I’m interpreting you (ha!) rightly. But besides begging the question about God and evil, how would this even work? How does a view of the world which I know I “created” actually meet the needs I’m trying to address in REinterpreting life so creatively in the first place? It just doesn’t make sense. Sure, people do tell themselves lies and over time actually come to believe their own lies, but believing lies isn’t right or good just because it gives a person “psychological certainty” (which believing lies can eventually do).
I’m all over the place, right? Now tell me how creatively I interpreted YOU! Ha!
Third, one doesn’t have to view God has determining the hardship that befalls us in order to believe that God, like an earthly father, uses such things to “discipline” us. Sure, we’ve already agreed many times here that God can and does ‘correct’ us, even ‘judge’ us, when we screw up, and this involves (among other things perhaps) stepping back and letting the world beat up on us if we deserve it. This is part of discipline. But it’s not the only part of discipline. It’s also true that parents prepare their children for life and develop their character through measured exposure to hardship they don’t deserve. God can do this (we parents do), but that doesn’t mean there aren’t some hardships and circumstances any good parent wouldn’t use. And then, even where the first sort of discipline (to correct and judge) is used, isn’t it redemptive? So it reduces down to the second sort of discipline in the end. The point is, where hardship strikes, we ought to examine our lives and ask ourselves if there’s anything we’ve done to deserve it. If so (and a good God would guide an honest questioner), then we can see God as a good parent in the event calling us home. If not, then we can still see God as a good parent in the event calling us higher.
Just supposing this is the point of Hebrews, why see it as the author’s “REinterpretation”? But even if we were to view it as a new interpretation, as scripture wouldn’t it be uniquely inspired and authoritative?
Lastly, when I read “Faith as ‘psychological certainty’ brought on by ‘subjective appropriation’ of something as one's ‘absolute’ (SK stuff) in the face of ‘objective uncertainty’” I’m not sure what I hear. My thing is this—it really DOES matter what one’s “absolute” is. Sure, all our beliefs have to be subjectively appropriated. And we can only have psychological certainty about what we’ve subjectively appropriated. But these shouldn’t have to cut us off from being justified in believing that what we’re subjectively appropriating is really “out there,” is really true, and exists apart from our own subjectivity. The question is, do we have good reasons, are we justified, in believing God exists, that’s he’s good, etc. If we do, then believing God is good in the face of adversity isn’t “creative” or “REinterpreting” at all. It’s just being biblical. It’s being LIKE those biblical heroes. We’re doing what they did. But since they’re stories, and their interpretations of life, are in scripture and ours are not, THEY function with authority while ours do not.
Alan, if you’re out there, you did your dissertation on epistemology, right?
Mephi: (2) The author goes to great lengths showing both how people DID receive what they hoped for...AND those who didn't, from a temporal point of view. (For the moment, we won't question the historicity of the Exodus or the walls of Jericho falling. Heh.)...
Tom: Now why’d ya have to go and say add that parenthetical statement? Gosh.
Mephi: …The author is speaking from a Christian point of view that the Old Testament believers NEVER would have had…
Tom: That’s the point of debate, though. Why can’t the author be reflecting in his situation the same worldview and priorities those heroes possessed? That seems to be what the author thinks he’s doing.
Are you saying the OT believers expected “exclusively” temporal/material fulfillment? That they themselves didn’t feel the journey was about ultimately eternal promises? Point is, NT writers don’t only interpret OT temporal/material promises as having eternally enduring realities behind them, they actually attribute this understanding to those OT heroes. It’s WHY the heroes endured what they endured, at least in the author’s view. The author of Hebrews doesn’t claim to reinterpret what he admits Abraham understood ONLY as a temporal/material promise, he actually claims that Abraham himself looked beyond the earthly.
Mephi: …and on that basis seems to "work out" the fact that some of these people did NOT receive some of the temporal promises that they were supposed to receive from God. How? God gives them what they ULTIMATELY wanted supposedly...the city of God. This is cool, but I think this poses interesting questions in the lines of divine providence and the ability of God to carry out temporal saving acts.
Tom: You’d have to go through ‘em a promise at a time and work it out. But the author of Hebrews, for example, doesn’t seem to me to be introducing a reinterpretation of temporal promises to “work out” his disappointment that Abraham didn’t receive what was promised so those promises could help his readers “cope.” What d’ya think?
Agreed, though, the NT does introduce new material. If not, it wouldn’t be “new” right? But this in itself doesn’t require us to suppose that the “new” came along to do damage control for those whose faith was struggling in the light of God’s failure to give Abraham was he promised. “New” doesn’t have to mean “unexpected.”
Mephi: [Digression: This seems like something I've seen in my experience more than a couple of times. When someone is REALLY believing and praying for a miraculous healing for a loved one...and it doesn't happen. THere are MANY times where the lack of healing gets REINTERPRETED in the following way: "Well, now they have the ULTIMATE healing of being with God!" Comforting as this is, this seems like a reinterpretation that's allowed by certain Christian understandings. And it works (for some) for the sticky problem of WHY a person or set of people who were standing in faith didn't receive a healing. Do we not see the same motif here in Hebrews??]
Tom: I don’t think that’s what’s going on in Hebrews at all. For starters, believers can go “into” their quest for physical healing ‘now’ all the while committed to the belief that heaven really IS when and where our bodies will be what God intended them to be. Why should heaven have to be the fall-back option when things don’t work out? Why set up this distinction as a “reinterpretation” at all?
Mephi: It can be argued, I think, that the corporate interpretation of the Babylonian conquest and exile of God's people as divine judgement could be one example. This is just what theodicy people do too. Trying to make sense of things in their world given certain core understandings of God. It would seem to me that this would go hand-in-hand with having faith in what one knows about God.
Tom: Which is it? Does one “know” things about God or does one just “assume” things about God. You’ve said both.
Mephi: So, how could faith IN NO WAY include creative theologizing to preserve an dogmatic idea of God in the face of adversity?
Tom: But if the understanding of God isn’t MERELY assumed—if it’s actually justified—then it can’t be a REinterpretation. It would be THE interpretation wouldn’t it? It all depends on whether your dogma is justified biblically and what you understand the biblical record’s inspiration and authority to be, that is, in what sense you understand the Bible to be “revealing” truth to us? To say that the Babylonian captivity was (objectively speaking) NOT God acting in history in relationship to a chosen people and that Israel invented an interpretation of the events as a (subjective) coping mechanism makes it very difficult (in my mind) to maintain the belief that the story is uniquely God-breathed and authoritative for us.
Here’s my thing. I totally buy the real distinction between objectivity and subjectivity. And I totally buy the fact that all knowledge (for us), even empirical knowledge we get in a laboratory, has to be subjectively appropriated (WE experience the world through OUR senses). But here’s the thing: as human beings we are constitutionally incapable of appropriating subjectively what we don’t also believe is true objectively. This doesn’t mean we have to have irrefutable proof for our beliefs. It only means that our beliefs have to be justified. They have to be reasonable, given the evidence.
Mephi: One of mine is the following: Personal faith CANNOT be separated from one's interpretations of events, ideas, or other things. This is because of the very subjective nature of faith.
Tom: Yes, but the subjectivity doesn’t have to mean our interpretations are ONLY ours. We can have good reasons for believing that they are biblical, that how we’re interpreting life is how THEY interpreted life.
Mephi: When we say that we experience God as being faithful or something like that we are INTERPRETING events in our lives and (whether we know it or not) making the CHOICE, to a significant degree...
Tom: To more than a significant degree. To a 100% degree, yes! We do and MUST “choose” to interpret life.
Mephi: …to interpret things that we have heard or things that happen to us AS God being faithful. For me personally, whenever I do this...I have a particular statement that I make for myself...or when I talk to others. "I choose to interpret this as..." I use this whenever I am talking perpsectivally about divine or demonic activity.
Tom: Yes, interpreting life this way IS a choice. The question is, is it a justified choice? Are there good “reasons” to make the choice? Better reasons than not? THAT is where “reason” IS important.
Mephi: This reflects the fact that my interpretation and actuality are RELATED, though DISTINCT. My interpretation of things may, AT MOST, be indicative of reality...but not totally things as they are in any naive sense.
Tom: Well, heck yeah. That’s why a worldview is called a worldVIEW and not THE world. Interpretations of the world are just that, interpretations/explanations. But to be meaningfully appropriated at a subjective level, we MUST believe the objective world really is as we’re interpreting it to be, otherwise we’re fabricating and not appropriating. So, you can say the author of Hebrews was mistaken or deceived in attributing the Abraham the belief that what God was REALLY promising and what was reflected in the temporal/material promises was an eternal city, but you can’t say (without emptying the concepts of inspiration and authority of meaning) the author knowingly invented a view he knew was completely foreign to Abraham.
Mephi: In short, I treat "faith" as the significantly chosen subjective approriation of something as "true", even in the face of objective uncertainty and ambiguity.
Tom: Yes…but (I think). I mean, maybe it’s the act of “appropriating” that we need to unpack, then. I agree that it’s a subjective “choice,” but I’d add that it’s a certain “kind” of choice. I’m saying there has to be reasoned justification for acts of faith, otherwise you have presumption. Will life let us find meaning in choosing to believe what we know we’re believing for NO OTHER reason than that we need it to be true, in order to help us cope. So yes, faith MUST be a choice, but a justified choice; the subjective appropriation of something as true, yes, but a justified belief that it’s objectively true.
Can I have faith in just anything? Well, no. Can I believe Ronald Regan was never President of the United States? Not justifiably. The belief is unjustified given the evidence. Now, was Abraham justified in believing God’s promise to give him a son? I think so, yes. Abraham had good ‘reasons’ for believing God would do what he said. True, he looked at his own body and (again) ‘reasoned’ there’s no way HE could produce a child (on his own). But Abraham did anything but deny reason in admitting that his body was beyond having kids and believing God would fulfill his promise. The same reasoning faculties also told him that the God who had called him and demonstrated his power and faithfulness COULD do this, so believing God WOULD do this becomes the MORE reasonable thing to do.
Mephi: So, how could faith IN NO WAY include creative theologizing to preserve a dogmatic idea of God in the face of adversity?
Tom: You gotta flesh this “creative theologizing” out for me, ‘cause I don’t think I’m getting it. But why should this (whatever it is) be done “to preserve a dogmatic idea” about God? Our theologizing in the face of adversity IS (I agree) ‘informed’ by our idea of God, but I just don’t see why you seem to be assuming we do so in order to (just?) preserve our idea of God. If our ideas about God are justified, then interpreting life in light of them is normal and right, no?
What am I missing?
Peace out,
Tom
Post Edited (TGB) : 1/17/2005 6:38:00 PM (GMT-6) | | Back to Top | | |
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One Love
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Total Posts : 13888
| Posted 1/17/2005 10:44 PM (GMT -6) | | Basically, what I'm saying is the following:
The author of Hebrews had a certain understanding of God (contextualized by the Old Testament, apostolic teaching, and his own experiences, etc.) and according to that understanding, the author interpreted (or REinterpreted) the persecution of his Christian audience as helpful discipline from God. This interpretation arose as an ACT OF FAITH in the God that the biblical author understood. Instead of looking at the persecution and explicitly seeing the devil at work, persons blinded by the devil's wiles or something like that (which would have ALSO went right along with the worldview), this author chose to interpret things as divine character building.
This is just like what you say here, Tom:
I think there are two different acts of interpretation going on. One is interpreting the words of scripture. The other is interpreting life in view of scripture. The first doesn’t seem to require faith or amount to an act of faith. Atheists can learn Greek and Hebrew, study the cultural and literary context, and for the most part say what the words mean. That’s interpreting the Bible. But the second really does seem to be an act of faith. Once a person does the first act, that is, understand what she believes is a “biblical” worldview (which doesn’t take faith), she then has the choice of making that biblical view HER worldview and acting upon it. THAT interpretation of life—formed by scripture (and other things too)—is very much an act of faith I think, but it doesn’t have to amount to “creative interpreting”.
This is JUST what I was trying to say. When I talk about "creative theologizing", I'm talking about the process by which we ENACT theodicy in life. Interpreting (or REinterpreting) life circumstances in LIGHT of what we dogmatically believe about God. Just like Doc postulating "mysteries in the tornados" and stuff ultimately because of his belief in God being love. Creative theologizing is NOT just making up stuff just because you can...or just because you NEED it to be true. It's reinterpreting things IN LIGHT OF one's dogmatic beliefs about something. This IS an act of faith...just like you said.
********************************
about these...
What we have in Hebrews 12 is somebody’s interpretation of life in the second sense (an act of faith) which BECOMES (via being God-breathed) more than just one person’s subjective appropriation of truth. As God-breathed, it becomes a written record of the right way to interpret God’s goodness in a bad world. It becomes a truth to BE appropriated by us. (Not sure I’m explaining this well.) But it looks like what’s happening is that God acts in history and reveals himself. But in order for those events to function as a revelation for US the way they did for those who saw them firsthand (without a Bible), there needs to be a trustworthy ‘record’ of those events so that they can live on and do for us what they did for them.
I don’t wanna get off into the debate about scripture and inspiration, but it’s hard to avoid completely. Where one comes down on the questions like ‘What is scripture really?’, ‘What’s it mean for scripture to be God-breathed’, and ‘What do we mean when we call the Bible “God’s Word”?’ really does decide what our options are for understanding what the author of Hebrews (or any other author) intended (if anything) to mean and what authority, if any, that meaning has for us today.
and...
Are you saying the OT believers expected “exclusively” temporal/material fulfillment? That they themselves didn’t feel the journey was about ultimately eternal promises? Point is, NT writers don’t only interpret OT temporal/material promises as having eternally enduring realities behind them, they actually attribute this understanding to those OT heroes. It’s WHY the heroes endured what they endured, at least in the author’s view. The author of Hebrews doesn’t claim to reinterpret what he admits Abraham understood ONLY as a temporal/material promise, he actually claims that Abraham himself looked beyond the earthly.
and...
But if the understanding of God isn’t MERELY assumed—if it’s actually justified—then it can’t be a REinterpretation. It would be THE interpretation wouldn’t it? It all depends on whether your dogma is justified biblically and what you understand the biblical record’s inspiration and authority to be, that is, in what sense you understand the Bible to be “revealing” truth to us? To say that the Babylonian captivity was (objectively speaking) NOT God acting in history in relationship to a chosen people and that Israel invented an interpretation of the events as a (subjective) coping mechanism makes it very difficult (in my mind) to maintain the belief that the story is uniquely God-breathed and authoritative for us.
and...
So, you can say the author of Hebrews was mistaken or deceived in attributing the Abraham the belief that what God was REALLY promising and what was reflected in the temporal/material promises was an eternal city, but you can’t say (without emptying the concepts of inspiration and authority of meaning) the author knowingly invented a view he knew was completely foreign to Abraham.
Dude, look at the way some of the New Testament authors use the Old Testament (especially Matthew). Surely, you wouldn't say that they were perfect adherents of the historical-critical method of biblical hermeneutics, right? No. What seems to happen a lot is that the authors thought CHRISTOCENTRICALLY and interpreted the scriptures in that light, yes? Don't you think that it's VERY possible that the author was reflecting upon these "heroes of faith" from a Christian point of view to make his ULTIMATE point to his audience about remaining faithful, being patient for the reward? How about YES! Do you REALLY think that Moses was thinking about CHRIST like the Hebrews author says???
Hebrews 11
24By faith Moses, when he had grown up, refused to be known as the son of Pharaoh's daughter. 25He chose to be mistreated along with the people of God rather than to enjoy the pleasures of sin for a short time. 26He regarded disgrace for the sake of Christ as of greater value than the treasures of Egypt, because he was looking ahead to his reward.
Come on, homie. This seems like another "Out of Egypt, I have called my Son" moment. (See Matt 2:15) You know just as well as I that IF the Exodus happened anything like what the Bible says that Moses didn't KNOW about Christ and definitely didn't leave Pharoah's house because of it! So what could this indicate? Hmmm...how about a very CHRISTOCENTRIC reflection of Jewish salvation history? Yeah, that seems like the ticket.
Now, following your implicit logic, Tom, you'd have to say that BECAUSE the Hebrews author says what he says...that Moses MUST HAVE really 1) known about Christ and 2) forsook Egypt and took on disgrace with God's people for the sake of Christ and 3) was looking forward to his reward for suffering for the sake of Christ.
Tom...this is a TALL order, man. Really tall. Too dang tall, man.
I'd rather say that the Hebrews author did what OTHER biblical authors seemed to do: have serious christocentric reflection on OT scriptures to the point of going WELL BEYOND the plausible intent of the original authors. And this was the Hebrews authors HUMAN reflection!
And whatever this means for biblical authority...it just means that. Actually, we SHOULD have a conversation about that.
"I've been converted three times. The first was to traditional Christianity; the second to honesty and the third was to the Love of God and man (humanity) The third was the real conversion. The first two were preliminary."
--Nels Ferre, a theologian speaking of his spiritual journey with the Triune God
Post Edited (MephEternal) : 1/18/2005 8:14:51 AM (GMT-6) | | Back to Top | | |
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Tom
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| Posted 1/18/2005 10:31 AM (GMT -6) | | |
Selah: Two things confuse me regarding faith. 1) The fact that it seems to be primary - over and above reason in scripture - yet WE still DO reason most of the time when trying to understand God or events...especially when the ____ hits the fan…
Tom: Your confusion here comes, then, from assuming that in scripture faith is in fact “over and above reason.” But this would only be the case if “over and above” meant “antithetical.” But this doesn’t have to be the case. Faith can go beyond reason without being reason’s enemy. I’d explore this relationship more before concluding that it’s confusing to “reason most of the time when trying to understand God or events.” I think we ought to reason ALL the time when “trying to understand” God and events. How would we “understand” anything otherwise?
Selah: 2) The fact that Christians everywhere experience the faithfulness of Christ...ongoing...despite the chaos in the world and all the variables that seem to be (at least from the warfare perspective) almost impossible for God to maneuver around.
Tom: It should only be confusing if it’s always impossible (and not “almost” impossible”) for God to manage the variables. But since you do experience the faithfulness of God then it’s obviously because maneuvering the variables is NOT impossible for God. So (2) shouldn’t cause any confusion. But we also ought to think about what it actually means for us for God to act faithfully. Does that always mean God and we get what we together want. Not if variables other than us and God have anything to do with it. So God should be thought to be faith if he acts wisely with a view to fulfilling his plans and purposes regardless of whether those plans always turn out. This doesn’t mean we always have the specs on what was what (and when and how) in terms of those plans and variables. But we trust God does know them and acts faithful in their (and our) regard. How are we able to trust that God is like this? The Cross.
So…faith for US then means choosing and acting in ways consistent with our understanding of God’s plans and purposes. We’re faithful when we do that and unfaithful when we don’t. That’s what those heroes in Hebrews 11 did, right? Abraham may have doubted and struggled, but he “chose,” he “lived,” in harmony with the belief that the promise would be fulfilled. His reason admitted that fulfillment could not come if it was up to Abraham’s “body.” But that’s OK, because reason also told him that his own body wasn’t the only factor that determined the fulfillment of the promise. There was God! So reason agrees…believe in God’s promise. That’s a ‘reasonable’ thing to do. When the sh*t hits the fan, does reasoning through all you know about God and the Cross actually tell you God CAN’T be trusted? Well there ya are.
What’s the difficulty?
Tom Post Edited (TGB) : 1/18/2005 9:41:53 AM (GMT-6) | | Back to Top | | |
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Tom
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| Posted 1/18/2005 10:39 AM (GMT -6) | | Mephi: Basically, what I'm saying is the following: The author of Hebrews had a certain understanding of God (contextualized by the Old Testament, apostolic teaching, and his own experiences, etc.) and according to that understanding, the author interpreted (or REinterpreted) the persecution of his Christian audience as helpful discipline from God. This interpretation arose as an ACT OF FAITH in the God that the biblical author understood. Instead of looking at the persecution and explicitly seeing the devil at work, persons blinded by the devil's wiles or something like that (which would have ALSO went right along with the worldview), this author chose to interpret things as divine character building.
Tom: I'm fine with this, except the author doesn't explicitly exclude the devil being behind bad events and it's not impossible to affirm both that Satan is behind evil that befalls us and God uses the event to "raise" and "train" us in his ways. So I'm with ya on what faith is. I just don't think in this case it excludes belief in Satan's being behind the evil of, say, persecution bearing down on the author's readers.
Tom
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One Love
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| Posted 1/18/2005 11:02 AM (GMT -6) | | Tom:
I'm fine with this, except the author doesn't explicitly exclude the devil being behind bad events and it's not impossible to affirm both that Satan is behind evil that befalls us and God uses the event to "raise" and "train" us in his ways. So I'm with ya on what faith is. I just don't think in this case it excludes belief in Satan's being behind the evil of, say, persecution bearing down on the author's readers.
Neither does it exclude God DIRECTLY ORDAINING the suffering of his people for greater good purposes, right? Maybe it's just me...but the author definitely seems to be leaning in that vein...
7Endure hardship as discipline; God is treating you as sons. For what son is not disciplined by his father? 8If you are not disciplined (and everyone undergoes discipline), then you are illegitimate children and not true sons. 9Moreover, we have all had human fathers who disciplined us and we respected them for it. How much more should we submit to the Father of our spirits and live! 10Our fathers disciplined us for a little while as they thought best; but God disciplines us for our good, that we may share in his holiness. 11No discipline seems pleasant at the time, but painful. Later on, however, it produces a harvest of righteousness and peace for those who have been trained by it.
12Therefore, strengthen your feeble arms and weak knees. 13“Make level paths for your feet,” so that the lame may not be disabled, but rather healed.
I mean, if one WANTED to stretch things and say that the devil is IMPLIED in this, one could. But it would seem like reading in the open view into this. Just me.
"I've been converted three times. The first was to traditional Christianity; the second to honesty and the third was to the Love of God and man (humanity) The third was the real conversion. The first two were preliminary."
--Nels Ferre, a theologian speaking of his spiritual journey with the Triune God
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Tom
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| Posted 1/18/2005 3:52 PM (GMT -6) | | Selah: Say you plan a budget. It’s a good budget, everything necessary included right down to tithes and offerings...
THEN God tells YOU ... "Hey tom, ditch that whole budget, give _____ amount to so and so over there... QUICK" Do you do it by faith, do you do it by reason, do you not do it at all?
Tom: If it’s ME God’s telling you to give the money to, then I’d say turn your brain off, don’t reason about anything for the slightest moment, and give me the money no friggin matter what common sense tells you.
Seriously though…
When a believer plans a budget, she would presumably (if the intimate relationship with God you speak of is there) attach a footnote to the entire thing saying “Hey stupid, God has the right to step in at any time and give me specific instructions about what to do.” In other words, when “reasoning through” a budget you “reason in” God and his Lordship over you don’t ya? So in the example you gave, I’d say that were God to tell me “Ditch your budget plans this month and give X amount of dollars to so and so,” I wouldn’t abandon “reason.” On the contrary, I’d respond by “reasoning” that I’m to give X amount to so and so “because” God is God over my budget and because he’s told me to do so. An atheist’s “reasoning” would lead him to conclude that I’m a nut, of course. But wouldn’t we conclude that an atheist’s “reasoning” in this instance is faulty because it leaves God out of the equation?
So to ask “Do I do it by reason OR do I do it by faith” is to assume that I cannot by BOTH reason and faith give X amount of dollars away in an unbudgeted manner. It’s not really unbudgeted if God is Lord over my budget. See?
Sure, there are some things “reason” alone can’t accomplish. We can’t be “saved by reason” for example. We’re “saved by faith.” But this doesn’t mean we don’t “reason” our way into responding to God’s overtures to us and so believe. It just means that having great intellectual and reasoning abilities doesn’t earn us salvation.
Clear as mud?
Now, write me a check for $500.00 so I can get up to Minneapolis over Spring break and meet “the Gang” at Sofia’s Jazz Club for dinner and solve this in the right kind of atmosphere.
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Tom
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| Posted 1/18/2005 4:18 PM (GMT -6) | | Mehpi: What I CANNOT see a consistent open view theist having any type of unwavering faith in is God keeping TEMPORAL promises of deliverance, salvation, healing, provision, etc. Neither can I see unwavering faith that prayers WILL be answered.
Tom: It's not true that because God allows SOME temporal promises to be conditional that ALL his temporal promises are conditional. In fact, we can have unwavering faith in the fulfillment of some temporal promises. The return of Christ and other eschatological declarations, for example (Christ's return is a temporal promise by the way) doesn't seem to be conditional. There's no reason to believe we have the power to thwart these just because God gives us the say-so in other matters. But salvation (you included that)? There's good reason for believing our personal relationship IS secure, that the say-so of others and the power of demons cannot robb us of our salvation (Rom. 8). I mean, what does Paul do in ch. 8 if not specify that one's personal relationship with God, one's salvation, is secure from ALL factors outside the wills of God and the person herself? So the issue isn't so all-or-nothing is it? And if God is free to make SOME temporal promises unconditional, why can't God TELL somebody that a particular promise of his is unconditional? Isn't this what you say elsewhere is a feature of your understanding of God, namely, that God can and does act unilaterally? How can you then at the same time say everything is up for grabs? This doesn't mean of course that everybody who THINKS God promised them something unconditinally is right on. But surely God can do such a thing in some circumstances.
Tom
Post Edited (TGB) : 1/18/2005 3:33:08 PM (GMT-6) | | Back to Top | | |
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JEE
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| Posted 1/18/2005 7:14 PM (GMT -6) | | Mehpi: What I CANNOT see a consistent open view theist having any type of unwavering faith in is God keeping TEMPORAL promises of deliverance, salvation, healing, provision, etc. Neither can I see unwavering faith that prayers WILL be answered.
Hmmm. Why not? Unless one presupposes some kind of unconditional guarantee that they will be delivered from any and all hardship, sickness, or other problems in this life (which most Christians don't subscribe to regardless of their position wrt the Open View), and unless one rules out the synergistic relationship with God that salvation consists in, thinking only in "all or nothing" terms of God's workings in human lives, it is not clear to me how the Open View would tend to degrade the reasonableness of trusting in God's promises.
For instance, in Jude when God promises that He is able to keep us from falling and to present us faultless before His throne, in the same context we are told what our part is--keep yourselves in the love of God, praying in the Holy Spirit, etc.
Likewise, in 1 Peter 1:5 we have God's promise that we are "kept by the power of God." Our part to play is found in the same verse--we are kept by the power of God through faith.
This is true with regard to every promise for believers that can be found in scripture--they are all conditioned upon our compliance with the terms of receiving the promise, our sincerity and persistence in asking (see Parable of the Unjust Judge), and whether or not granting the request would be in keeping with God's character and His specific designs.
As to "unwavering faith that prayers WILL be answered," all prayers are answered--either "Yes," "No," "Wait," or "You've got to be kidding!"  Post Edited (JEE) : 1/18/2005 6:19:12 PM (GMT-6) | | Back to Top | | |
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Corey
Five with a Four-wing
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| Posted 1/18/2005 7:24 PM (GMT -6) | |
Selah: It's not a faith vs. reason debate Tom...really. If God tells you to take action in what seems like an UNREASONABLE request... how DO YOU KNOW it's God making the request? That's the question. Tom: Well why didn't you say so? Silly Rabbit!
If God asked me to do something that seemed unreasonable, how would I know it's God making the request? There's only ONE possible answer: I'd have to know his voice well enough to know it's him making the request. So the answer is: the intimacy of personal relationship. His sheep know his voice.  Tom
This is where I like what Plantinga argues for in Warranted Christian Belief... that the Internal Instigation of the Holy Spirit (IIHS) is a properly basic belief. I would have no more reason to doubt that I heard God than to doubt other things like sense perceptions, memory, etc., assuming my cognitive faculties are functioning properly.
I'm not aware of any biblical examples where the prophets and such doubted whether or not it was God talking to them; it never seemed to be an option for them to just rationalize the whole experience away. Going out on a limb here: if it's truly God talking, it's unmistakable. And the converse... if I am doubting it, it's probably not God talking. (Not sure I like that myself, just following the thought.)
Against all evidentialists (those defending theism as well as those attacking it), Plantinga urged that it can be “entirely right, rational, reasonable, and proper to believe in God without any evidence or argument at all”. Such belief can instead be “properly basic”, by virtue of its grounding in the immediate deliverances of a Sensus Divinitatis implanted in us by God.
Post Edited (Corey) : 1/18/2005 7:00:30 PM (GMT-6) | | Back to Top | | |
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One Love
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| Posted 1/18/2005 7:58 PM (GMT -6) | | Tom:
NT use of the OT is a big big subject. On one end you have Walk Kaiser (is he still President of Gordon-Conwell Sem?) arguing that what the NT says the OT means IS what the OT author intended. On the other end you have, I guess, the view that the NT authors saw the OT as lose yarn they could use to spin personal theories AND we can do the same. Somewhere in the middle maybe are views like Longenecker's: The NT authors DO under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit take the OT text beyond what its author intended or understood, BUT a) this new meaning is present in the OT text in seed-form in virtue of the fact that GOD is its ultimate author and b) no believer today has the authority to reproduce the hermeneutic of the NT authors. WE can't take an OT passage not treated by any NT author and interpret it Christocentrically with the same authority the NT authors possess.
It's seeming to me that a) is strongly based from the presuppositions leading to an INERRANTIST view of inspiration. If one doesn't presuppose inerrancy, then things get different. It would be nothing to acknowledge, like Longenecker, that there was contextual exegesis going on with the NT writers according to 1st century Jewish interpretation grids...while at the same time, NOT trying to foist some systematic theological idea to justify it's historical-grammatical alignment with the intentions of the OT people that are cited.
Tom, we have to break from from the tyranny of inerrancy and infallibility! Heh. 
************************************
Tom:
It's not true that because God allows SOME temporal promises to be conditional that ALL his temporal promises are conditional. In fact, we can have unwavering faith in the fulfillment of some temporal promises. The return of Christ and other eschatological declarations, for example (Christ's return is a temporal promise by the way) doesn't seem to be conditional. There's no reason to believe we have the power to thwart these just because God gives us the say-so in other matters. But salvation (you included that)? There's good reason for believing our personal relationship IS secure, that the say-so of others and the power of demons cannot robb us of our salvation (Rom. 8). I mean, what does Paul do in ch. 8 if not specify that one's personal relationship with God, one's salvation, is secure from ALL factors outside the wills of God and the person herself? So the issue isn't so all-or-nothing is it? And if God is free to make SOME temporal promises unconditional, why can't God TELL somebody that a particular promise of his is unconditional? Isn't this what you say elsewhere is a feature of your understanding of God, namely, that God can and does act unilaterally? How can you then at the same time say everything is up for grabs? This doesn't mean of course that everybody who THINKS God promised them something unconditinally is right on. But surely God can do such a thing in some circumstances.
When I said "salvation" I was thinking of a synonym for "deliverance" Wrong word usage. My bad.
With the unconditional promises. For this to work, we'd have to say that there are two "realms" in which God's promises take place. When God makes promises that are within the "acceptable risk" camp...and there are other promises that God makes that are not. If the promises are NOT in the "acceptable risk" camp, then one could be ABSOLUTELY SURE that it would come to pass. Why? Because God's unilateral activity IN THAT SPHERE would make it so. However, if God makes someone a promise that IS in the "acceptable risk" camp, then this means that God deems it an ACCEPTABLE RISK for something or someone to thwart the fulfillment of that promise...and it's possible that it won't come to pass, even though God promised it. "Natural evil", moral evil, or plain chance have ALLOWED POSSIBILITY to interfere.
What all this would mean is that, if God tells you something WILL happen or if God says that he WILL provide, you'd better do you darnedest to get God to say it's UNCONDITIONAL. Otherwise, you really can't know IN THE END if things will pan out.
Now all this DOES fall within the open view metaphysic. I don't know how many people would like this implication because it raises the problem of evil all over again in the form of God's willing and the existence of particular evils! We'd have to say that, in the large scheme of things, some things are just more important to God to have actualized than others...and that those things that God REEEEEALY wants to happen, He'll make it happen. Things that are NOT SO ESSENTIAL? Well, there's a good chance...but it still may not happen.
So, this is why I CANNOT see a consistent open view theist having any type of unwavering faith in is God keeping TEMPORAL promises of deliverance, healing, provision, etc. Neither can I see unwavering faith that prayers WILL be answered...UNLESS God makes some declaration that said promise is COMPLETELY UNCONDITIONAL (which I say very rarely, if ever, happens)
"I've been converted three times. The first was to traditional Christianity; the second to honesty and the third was to the Love of God and man (humanity) The third was the real conversion. The first two were preliminary."
--Nels Ferre, a theologian speaking of his spiritual journey with the Triune God
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Corey
Five with a Four-wing
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| Posted 1/18/2005 8:32 PM (GMT -6) | |
TGB said...
Tom: Wow. Don’t you think “hearing” God is something we learn to develop and do better over time (unlike learning to feel what we touch, remember our memories, or see what we see)? In other words, it’s not as automatic and non-interpretive as the exercise of sense perceptions. What would Plantinga say to sincere Christians who actually DO doubt whether what the feel God is saying to them is really God?
Yeah, this is an area where I'm growing; I'm probably inconsistent. I'm also a big fan of Dallas Willard and his "Hearing God" stuff. Go figure.
Here's how I've been processing this (not sure Plantinga would agree). The big disclaimer in Plantinga's position is in the clause about "assuming cognitive faculties are functioning properly." Since all of us are screwed up to some extent by the noetic effects of sin, "proper function" may not be all that common. So it would seem that the more I undergo regeneration/sanctification (whatever the proper word should be) the more I'm able to clearly hear God's voice. But it seems reasonable that God's original design was for us to perceive him as clearly as any other sense perception, and also that this is what we're being restored toward.
Post Edited (Corey) : 1/18/2005 7:54:16 PM (GMT-6) | | Back to Top | | |
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JEE
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| Posted 1/18/2005 8:49 PM (GMT -6) | | As to "unwavering faith that prayers WILL be answered," all prayers are answered--either "Yes," "No," "Wait," or "You've got to be kidding!"
Hmmm...sounds like a faith statement to me. Where does it say that God answers ALL prayers?
I of course could be wrong, but I take it as a direct inference from Christ's promise that "whatsoever you ask in my name, I will do it," with "in my name" being the definitive term. That is, anything consistent with Christ's name/character/purpose, (and that meets the conditions for answered prayer He has revealed to us in scripture), we can trust implicitly that He will in fact do. Anything we ask that is not consistent with His name, we can rest assured that he will not do. John 15 says essentially the same thing when it says, "if ye abide in me, and my words abide in you, ye shall ask what ye will, and it shall be done of my Father in heaven." 1 John 5 expresses the same truth when it says, "If we ask anything according to His will, he hears us." (I should hasten to add that, consistent with my understanding of the Open View, it seems clear at least to me that God's will is able to be influenced to some degree by us in some situations. IOW, God's will is in some cases flexible, which to me just means that God is a person who is able to deliberate and make decisions as He sees fit, and that He has not completely made up His mind on every last detail of the future yet).
Surely, we can INTERPRET God's silence as God telling us things, but we don't know that, right?
I certainly would have to admit that it could simply be the case that we haven't prayed hard enough, sincerely enough, or perseveringly enough (as the widow with the Unjust Judge did). I do think it comes down to the issue of accurately discerning His voice, as I think Tom has alluded to in this thread.
I think it's also important to note that while we tend to be most interested in our comfort, God's great interest is in the development of our character. God's will most of all is that we be loving/holy/righteous as He is, reflecting the Father's character. And just as an earthly father shouldn't just give his children every last thing they ever ask for if his intention is to form them into mature, unselfish adults someday, in many cases God obviously withholds what we might think we can't do without simply for our own good (because to grant it would not help us and would only make us more selfish in the long run).
Our lack of knowing the reasons why we don't receive answers to our prayers the way WE think He ought to answer them really just reveals our lack of knowledge of His will/intimacy with Him, not that He somehow can't be implicitly trusted.
John
P.S.: I forgot to mention one other possible answer to prayer--pray harder!
Post Edited (JEE) : 1/18/2005 8:15:25 PM (GMT-6) | | Back to Top | | |
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