General Question about various beliefs held by various people

[njd83]

Another smaller excerpt for food for thought and comments:

Chapter 2 of same book

Note carefully, these verses do not say that the purpose of the testing was for the covenant partners to know their own hearts. The explicitly stated purpose was for God “to know” how they would incline their hearts. How can this be reconciled with the view that God eternally knows exactly what will be in the heart of a person to do? How is it compatible with the classical assumption that God never comes to know anything, for his knowledge is unchanging? I see no viable way of reconciling this view with Scripture.

If we accept that the future is partly open, however, and if free agents resolve their hearts only when they decide on a course of action, then these verses make perfect sense. Except in cases in which a solidified character or God’s predestining plan makes people predictable (see chapter 1), Scripture teaches us that God literally finds out how people will choose when they choose. He made us self-determining agents, and prior to our determining ourselves in one direction or another, the only reality that exists for God to know concerning our future action is the possible directions we may take.

[njd83]

Another excerpt for food for thought and comments:

chapter 2 same book

They “May” Believe

One of the most interesting examples of this is when God tries to convince Moses to be his representative to the elders of Israel who are in bondage to Pharaoh. The Lord initially tells Moses that the elders will listen to his voice (Exod. 3:18). Moses apparently doesn’t hold to the classical view of divine foreknowledge, however, for he immediately asks, “suppose they do not believe me or listen to me?” (Exod. 4:1).

God’s response to him suggests that God doesn’t hold to this view of foreknowledge either. He first demonstrates a miracle “so that they may believe that the LORD … has appeared to you” (4:5). Moses remains unconvinced, so the Lord performs a second miracle and comments, “If they will not believe you or heed the first sign, they may believe the second sign” (4:8). How can the Lord say, “they may believe”? Isn’t the future behavior of the elders a matter of certainty for the Lord? Apparently not. Indeed, the Lord continues, “If they will not believe even these two signs or heed you, you shall take some water from the Nile and pour it on the dry ground; and the water that you shall take from the Nile will become blood on the dry ground” (4:9).

[njd83]

Another section:

God Speaks in Terms of What May or May Not Be

Sixth, the motif of future openness is expressed by the way the Lord often talks about the future in Scripture. If everything was settled in God’s mind from all eternity as the classical view holds, you would expect God to speak of the future in absolute terms. There would be no “maybes” for God. Remarkably, however, the Bible records numerous examples of God speaking in terms of what might or might not happen. Since God is omniscient and knows reality exactly as it is, these passages suggest that the future consists in part of things that might or might not happen.


They “May” Believe

One of the most interesting examples of this is when God tries to convince Moses to be his representative to the elders of Israel who are in bondage to Pharaoh. The Lord intially tells Moses that the elders will listen to his voice (Exod. 3:18). Moses apparently doesn’t hold to the classical view of divine foreknowledge, however, for he immediately asks, “suppose they do not believe me or listen to me?” (Exod. 4:1).

God’s response to him suggests that God doesn’t hold to this view of foreknowledge either. He first demonstrates a miracle “so that they may believe that the LORD … has appeared to you” (4:5). Moses remains unconvinced, so the Lord performs a second miracle and comments, “If they will not believe you or heed the first sign, they may believe the second sign” (4:8). How can the Lord say, “they may believe”? Isn’t the future behavior of the elders a matter of certainty for the Lord? Apparently not. Indeed, the Lord continues, “If they will not believe even these two signs or heed you, you shall take some water from the Nile and pour it on the dry ground; and the water that you shall take from the Nile will become blood on the dry ground” (4:9).

If the future is exhaustively settled, God would of course have known exactly how many miracles, if any, it would take to get the elders to believe Moses. In that case, the meaning of the words he chose (“may,” “if”) could not be sincere. If we believe that God speaks straightforwardly, however, it seems he did not foreknow with certainty exactly how many miracles it would take to get the elders of Israel to believe Moses.

This verse demonstrates that God is perfectly confident in his ability to achieve the results he is looking for (getting the elders of Israel to listen to Moses) even though he works with free agents who are, to some extent, unpredictable. That the Israelites would get out of Egypt was certain; how many miracles it would take to pull this off depended on the free choices of some key people. This is a picture of a God who is as creative and resourceful as he is wise and powerful.


The Glory of True Divine Sovereignty

As noted in the previous chapter, we have difficulty fathoming such a creative, wise, and lovingly powerful sovereignty. And this, perhaps, explains why many are inclined to assume that God needs an exhaustive blueprint of what is coming in order to accomplish his purposes. If we simply allow biblical texts to say what they seem to say, however, we are led to embrace the conclusion that God is so wise, resourceful, and sovereign over history that he doesn’t need or want to have everything in the future settled ahead of time. He is so confident in his power and wisdom that he is willing to grant an appropriate degree of freedom to humans (and angels) to determine their own futures.
In my view, every other understanding of divine providence to some extent diminishes the sovereignty and glory of God. It brings God’s wisdom and power down to the level of finite human thinking. We would need to control or possess a blueprint of all that is to occur ahead of time to steer world history effectively. But the true God is far wiser, far more powerful, and far more secure than we could ever imagine.

[dizerner]

God's the all glorious guesser.

Jesus said to him, "Assuredly, I say to you that this night, before the rooster crows, you might deny Me one... two... three times, who knows." (Mat 26:34 No Bible Ever).

[Homer]

And did God make Peter deny Jesus exactly three times (not four or two). If so did Peter sin? Or did Jesus know in advance what a free-will agent would do?

[njd83]

Hey now... please attack the actual theory of the Open View. Not a strawman. I know straw men are fun and all, but limit the theatrics so I can actually see some legitimate attacks on the Open View.

Now I know its easier and seems rational just to say "God knows everything" in terms of foreknowledge. It totally just seems reasonable to attribute that to Almighty God. When I first became a theist, that seemed totally like "of course" when I first started hearing those types of statements from various people.

To re-define the Open View for us all:

God has partial foreknowledge. Part of the future is foreknown by God, part of the future is open to be determined by free will agents, for good or bad, for or against God's will.

This is not something I had ever thought of as a new believer. Full Foreknowledge seemed to ring true. I may have heard about free will here and there, but not a really consistent open view of Free Will and Foreknowledge.

Now, do you really want me to respond to Matthew 26:34? Its a non-issue for the Open View because when the texts assert foreknowledge, the Open View takes it as such.

MY QUESTION is what do foreknowledgers do when they come across all the verses that don't seem to match up with Complete Foreknowledge.

Neither I nor Open View have problems with Matthew 26:34, nor your strawman.

Honestly. My presuppositions are:

1) Bible is accurate and trustworthy, historical not mystical, but can have layers of meaning

2) Bible should be taken as plainly written as intended to be understood in the genre, intended by the author

3) God means what he says, and is not putting on a charade for effect

See, because bringing up Mathew 26:34 as a defense for Complete Foreknowledge is like bringing up the fact that most wild sheep are brown. But not all sheep are brown. What about all the non-brown sheep? Lots of brown sheep don't prove their are no white sheep bros.

It DOES seem weird to only attribute SOME foreknowledge to Almighty God, and NOT ALL. I TOTALLY admit that that seems weird. But hey, I'm just trying to understand the texts that God wants me to understand in order to understand HIM.

So please, how can one theological group "explain away" one set of verses to their own liking/preference, while another theological group "explains away" another set of verses to their own liking/preference?

““Now we know that You know all things, and have no need for anyone to question You; by this we believe that You came from God.”” (John 16:30, NASB95)

““But of that day and hour no one knows, not even the angels of heaven, nor the Son, but the Father alone.” (Matthew 24:36, NASB95)

How am I supposed to read these two verses? God knows all things, but then says he does not know certain things in the texts, or acts or pretends like he doesn't. Jesus knows all things, but then says he doesn't.

hmmmm

I like the Open View in that is seems to make sense of most of the biblical texts and it also uses the principle I like which is "to take the text as plainly written". I'm sure we could come up with contradictions, but the Open View still make MORE sense of MORE texts than any other view I've considered.

ok, get your dukes up

Also: I would not say God MADE Peter deny Jesus, but that the devil was the one strongly tempting and weakening Peter due to his pride.

In terms of how God knew "3 times", you could just assume God knew 3 times would totally break Peter, and then God could "call it off" in the spiritual realm, or it would just be naturally over in the spiritual realm since satan would have successfully "humiliated" Peter enough, sadly. Just like Job's trials had limitations.

[njd83]

another section of chapter 2

Speaking in Conditional Terms

We have been arguing that the way God speaks about the future in conditional terms is evidence that the future is partly open. It may prove helpful to provide just a few more examples of this pervasive tendency.

In Exodus 13:17, for example, we learn that the Lord decided against leading Israel along the shortest route to Canaan because Israel would have had to fight the Philistines. The Lord thought it best to avoid this, saying, “Lest the people change their minds when they see war, and they return to Egypt.” The New International Version translates this, “If they face war they might change their minds and return to Egypt.” If we accept this language as inspired by God, doesn’t it clearly imply that God considered the possibility, but not the certainty, that the Israelites would change their minds if they faced battle?

In an even more impressive example, the Lord had Ezekiel symbolically enact Israel’s exile as a warning, telling him, “Perhaps they will understand, though they are a rebellious house” (Ezek. 12:3). As it turns out, Israel did not “understand.” If God was certain all along that Israel would not understand, how can we avoid the conclusion that he was lying when he told Ezekiel they might understand? Indeed, if the “perhaps” that the Lord spoke didn’t indicate a real possibility to God, one wonders what the point of this symbolic enactment was in the first place.

Similarly, the Lord commanded Jeremiah to preach to the cities of Judah, telling him, “It may be that they will listen … and will turn from their evil way, that I may change my mind about the disaster that I intend to bring on them because of their evil doings” (Jer. 26:3). Jeremiah’s preaching did not bring about the result God hoped for, which leads to this question: If God was certain the Judeans would not repent, was he not lying when he led Jeremiah to believe that they might repent? Indeed, if God never really changes his mind, was he not misleading Jeremiah and all the people by encouraging them to think of him as one who might change his mind (see Jer. 26:19)?

If we hold that the future is somewhat open, then passages such as these make perfect sense. When God gave Ezekiel and Jeremiah their assignments, there was at least a chance that people would respond favorably to them. God knows all of reality exactly as it is, so God had a perfect knowledge of what this chance was. He spoke genuinely when he told Ezekiel and Jeremiah that the people might understand and repent. The fact that the Israelites refused to understand or repent simply explains why God said “perhaps” and “maybe” instead of “surely.”

[njd83]

Another section:

Why Create Condemned People?

Another aspect of this passage is worth mentioning. Peter tells us that the delay in Christ’s return is due to the fact that God doesn’t want “any to perish, but all to come to repentance” (3:9). God wants everyone he’s created to turn to him. If everything about the future was settled before God ever created the world, however, God would of course have known exactly who would and would not respond to him. This not only creates difficulties understanding the meaning of God patiently delaying his return as he holds out hope for others to repent, it also raises the even more poignant question as to why God would create people he is certain will go to hell in the first place.

It is not difficult to understand why God sorrowfully allows people to choose evil and hell once he creates them. To take back freedom once it is given on the grounds that it is being used wrongly would mean that freedom was never given in the first place. This risk is inherent in creating free beings. But it is very difficult to understand why God gives freedom to beings he is certain are going to misuse it to the point of damning themselves to eternal hell. If it is better to never have been born than to suffer in hell, as Jesus says (Matt. 26:24), and if God always does the best thing, why would he not simply refrain from creating these condemned people?

Even more puzzling is the fact that God continues to strive with these people, trying to get them to believe. He is grieved when they resist him (see Isa. 63:10; Eph. 4:30; Acts 7:51; Heb. 3:8, 15; 4:7). Why would God expend this energy and experience this frustration if it was from all eternity a foregone conclusion that these fated people would not yield to his loving influence? Conversely, doesn’t the fact that God sincerely tries to get these people to believe imply that it was not certain to God that they would not believe when he created them?

[njd83]

Blotting Out from the Book of Life

Similarly, several times in Scripture God warns people that he may blot their names out of the Book of Life (Exod. 32:33; Rev. 3:5; cf. Rev. 22:18). This raises an interesting question: If God foreknew from all eternity that certain names would be “blotted out” of his book, why did he bother to put them there in the first place? If God may indeed “take away [a] … person’s share in the tree of life and in the holy city” (Rev. 22:19), and God knew this would happen, why did he give them a share in the first place? If we take these verses at face value, doesn’t this “blotting out” and “taking away” describe a genuine change in God’s attitude toward these people? And doesn’t this change entail that the eternal destiny of these people was not fixed in God’s mind from the start?

As the texts stand, they give us every reason to believe that God truly planned on saving these people, which is why their names were written in the book and they were given “a share” of the Tree of Life. Then they rebelled, so his plan for them was altered. They were “blotted out” and their share “taken away.” If these texts don’t teach us this much, it is not at all clear what they are intended to teach.

From an open view perspective, God creates the people he creates because he sees the possibility (but not the certainty) that they will become citizens of the eternal kingdom. He genuinely strives to win everyone because he hopes that they will surrender to him. When they meet the condition of salvation by exercising faith in him, he writes them in his book. When the condition is lost, so are they. The God who loves the entire world (John 3:16) is genuinely grieved when this happens. He knows that their loss was not inevitable. They could have, should have, and would have been his children.

So far as I can see, the open view makes better sense out of this wealth of biblical references than the view that people’s destinies are certain before they are ever born.

[njd83]

Another comment I have is that if a person would say that God's complete Foreknowledge is something that is just something He has, but does not act "in time" with people as if he had that knowledge... or whatever similar version of this....

THEN...

....for all practical purposes the way a believer goes about life would not make much difference between the Open View believer and the Foreknowledge believer...

....they both would live as if God deals with the world dynamically, but the the one would once in a while say... "God knows everything, and God is in Control"....

There would be no practical difference, since both go about life as if God is dealing with them dynamically, day to day.

But one believes the dynamic relationship with God is actually dynamic, while the other feels it to be dynamic, but will remind themselves once in a while that "God knows everything".

Almost a strange mental tick.

(just trying to joke around)