General Question about various beliefs held by various people

[njd83]

A Virtuously Flexible Omnipotence

First, many ancient and contemporary interpreters have used the potter/clay analogy to argue that God exercises unilateral control over us. They mistakenly read Paul to be using the analogy in this fashion (Rom. 9:21–23). Entering into a full discussion of Paul’s analogy would take us too far astray (see chapter 4, question 13). What is important for us to note is that in Jeremiah (the passage Paul is alluding to), the analogy is used to make the exact opposite point. As the potter was willing to revise his vessel once the first plan was “spoiled,” so God is willing to revise his initial plan when circumstances call for it. He is not a unilaterally controlling God; he is a graciously flexible God. The “clay” he works with is not lifeless but has a mind and will of its own, to which he responds appropriately.

[dizerner]

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)

No, I think you make a good and legitimate point here. I'd be lying if I said I didn't struggle with this exact issue quite a few times in my life. I do personally believe God could in practice withhold knowledge from himself, and it's the only way to explain some passages, the Son not knowing the hour, the Son having a name no one else knows, God forgetting our sins. It's a valid argument if God withheld future knowledge from himself the difference might seem negligible. Although even then, Open Theists are pretty much insisting God "can't" know the future, so that is not a volitional limitation. I'd like to explore some more ideas about self-limitations from God, and in fact this is how I would explain the incarnation as a functional kenosis, Jesus limits his divine attributes.

One might counter that doctrine is not about feeling one can wrap one's head around a thing, but just believing it on discipline because God says to do believe it. Calvinists like to pull this one out, and I'd never disagree, because sometimes we just believe a thing because we like it. And we need to check in our personal preferences at the door of worship and obedience I'd say. I've debated Open Theists before, I discussed it with a certain Brian Wagner on Leighton Flower's blog, and he's a smart guy, very intelligent. But I never got anywhere with him, it's almost like the idea seemed to make God interesting to him, like the idea itself became a cool and important thing that just maybe helped his faith or felt like a God that was less boring or something.

I've tried all different ways to argue, and the thing is, beliefs and their reasons, I don't think they are just based on logic, so although we can talk logic until the cows come home, it really doesn't do much. I know it's a misleading spirit, but I mean, a lot of false doctrine is a forgivable sin, maybe it doesn't matter that much. I'd have to believe it always robs you of something, even a small thing, and I personally really care about getting as accurate as I can, but I don't think it's hugely important. More people probably have false doctrine than true I guess, I mean I think they can still love Jesus and be with him some day, but it can't be a good thing.

Let me just some up the reasons this idea doesn't appeal to me again:

1. Not a self-limitation on God. so it's just making God a really big human with some of our own limitations.
2. Doesn't witness to me, doesn't help me, doesn't get God off any hook or make me feel better about anything.
3. Don't need it to interpret Scripture, as God could more clearly say "I don't know" anywhere at all.

The more things I read about openness, the more the above is just reinforced, and if I feel God has answered my prayers and revealed something to me—I'm not demanding you believe that although I'm hoping God would witness to it—it would be rejecting the light I have to doubt what is revealed.

God bless!

[njd83]

Hey Dizerner

I have been having Boyd's Chapter 2 read to me with the narrator, and then re-reading the sections, to kind of really absorb and re-learn what has been so in-grained in my mind over the years. I am really trying to re-consider whether the Traditional View has any valid points against the Open View, at least as far as whatever texts Boyd goes over in Chapter 2.

I am not sure which point you have made in the previous posts that refer to what the Lord cleared up for you. Can you be more specific? Or point me to the post?

Although even then, Open Theists are pretty much insisting God "can't" know the future, so that is not a volitional limitation.

Yeah the difference between God's choosing to not access the Foreknowledge VS The future consisting of free will choices that have not been made yet and are not settled ahead of time in God's Foreknowledge.

The first seems to be pretty strange. I can understand how Jesus himself did this:

“Have this attitude in yourselves which was also in Christ Jesus, who, although He existed in the form of God, did not regard equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied Himself, taking the form of a bond-servant, and being made in the likeness of men. Being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.” (Philippians 2:5–8, NASB95)

Kenosis - (in Christian theology) the renunciation of the divine nature, at least in part, by Christ in the Incarnation.

I have always understood God forgetting our sins as along the lines of He no longer considers them or holds them against us, seeing us afresh, anew, without regard for those sins which have been forgiven. Of course on the condition that we forgive others, otherwise he will again consider them against us, right?

“My heavenly Father will also do the same to you, if each of you does not forgive his brother from your heart.”” (Matthew 18:35, NASB95)

I am not seeing this type of "I will not remember your sins" or "forgetting sins" or "not considering sins" as really comparable to God's dealings in the various OT texts where he speaks as if the future is not yet settled and can go a number of ways, good or bad.

To place on all those texts that God does have exact Divine Foreknowledge of the events he is dealing with would seem very foreign to the text. Also the sins God "forgets" is also something that has happened concretely in the past. And Divine Foreknowledge is about having concrete knowledge of something yet to happen. So there's that difference. No one argues that the past is not known by God, or other beings, and I don't think anyone would really argue that God actually can't recall the sins of people he has forgiven, but rather no longer considers them against us. God can choose not to remember our sins against us because he has free will, and we actually need to be able to come to him with a clean slate, and he knows that.

An example of the "foreign-ness" of placing Divine Foreknowledge upon a text that seems to be more "dynamic" and not supporting Divine Foreknowledge is this one from Boyd's book I was currently reading:

Verses mentioned in this section are quoted below for reference.

God Will Not Change—But He Could

Regarding Samuel’s statement to Saul, it is important to recall that both before and after this verse we find Scripture explicitly teaching that God regretted making Saul king over Israel (1 Sam. 15:11, 35). He intended to bless him but ended up judging him instead (1 Sam. 13:13–14). We cannot declare the middle verse to be literal and the other two nonliteral just because the middle verse might fit best with our theological preconceptions. There is no indication in the text of a switch from literal to nonliteral speech.

Some argue that we must consider that some sort of switch occurs, for otherwise we would have to assume that the Bible contradicts itself (in the space of a dozen verses or so!). If we carefully read each verse in context, however, we find that there is no contradiction between them, even if we interpret them all literally.

It’s important to note that Samuel had prayed all night trying to change the Lord’s mind regarding Saul’s dethronement (1 Sam. 15:11–12). This alone is enough to demonstrate that Samuel believed that God could, in principle, change his mind about things. It’s just that, after trying all night, he came to conclude that in this instance God wouldn’t change his mind. There is a big difference between “couldn’t” and “wouldn’t.” The classical view of divine foreknowledge teaches the former, but Scripture on occasion teaches the latter. We find several examples of God declaring, “I will not change my mind” (Ezek. 24:14; Zech. 8:14). But note carefully, these exceptions prove the rule. It is only meaningful for God to say he will not change his mind if it is true that he could change his mind if he wanted to, and if it is true that many times he does want to (see Jer. 18:7–10; Jonah 4:2; Joel 2:12–13).

First Samuel 15:29 does not teach that God couldn’t change his mind, only that in this instance he wouldn’t change it. Perhaps if Saul had truly repented of his sin instead of begging Samuel to change things with a purely selfish motive (v. 27), God would have reversed his decision once again. Unfortunately, Saul gave God no reason to forgive him or restore him. And, unlike fallible and fickle humans, God can’t be cajoled into altering his plans for any reasons other than those that are consistent with his unchanging holy character.

““I regret that I have made Saul king, for he has turned back from following Me and has not carried out My commands.” And Samuel was distressed and cried out to the LORD all night. Samuel rose early in the morning to meet Saul; and it was told Samuel, saying, “Saul came to Carmel, and behold, he set up a monument for himself, then turned and proceeded on down to Gilgal.”” (1 Samuel 15:11–12, NASB95)

“Samuel did not see Saul again until the day of his death; for Samuel grieved over Saul. And the LORD regretted that He had made Saul king over Israel.” (1 Samuel 15:35, NASB95)

“Samuel said to Saul, “You have acted foolishly; you have not kept the commandment of the LORD your God, which He commanded you, for now the LORD would have established your kingdom over Israel forever. “But now your kingdom shall not endure. The LORD has sought out for Himself a man after His own heart, and the LORD has appointed him as ruler over His people, because you have not kept what the LORD commanded you.”” (1 Samuel 13:13–14, NASB95)

““I, the LORD, have spoken; it is coming and I will act. I will not relent, and I will not pity and I will not be sorry; according to your ways and according to your deeds I will judge you,” declares the Lord GOD.’ ”” (Ezekiel 24:14, NASB95)

““For thus says the LORD of hosts, ‘Just as I purposed to do harm to you when your fathers provoked Me to wrath,’ says the LORD of hosts, ‘and I have not relented,” (Zechariah 8:14, NASB95)

““At one moment I might speak concerning a nation or concerning a kingdom to uproot, to pull down, or to destroy it; if that nation against which I have spoken turns from its evil, I will relent concerning the calamity I planned to bring on it. “Or at another moment I might speak concerning a nation or concerning a kingdom to build up or to plant it; if it does evil in My sight by not obeying My voice, then I will think better of the good with which I had promised to bless it.” (Jeremiah 18:7–10, NASB95)

“He prayed to the LORD and said, “Please LORD, was not this what I said while I was still in my own country? Therefore in order to forestall this I fled to Tarshish, for I knew that You are a gracious and compassionate God, slow to anger and abundant in lovingkindness, and one who relents concerning calamity.” (Jonah 4:2, NASB95)

““Yet even now,” declares the LORD, “Return to Me with all your heart, And with fasting, weeping and mourning; And rend your heart and not your garments.” Now return to the LORD your God, For He is gracious and compassionate, Slow to anger, abounding in lovingkindness And relenting of evil.” (Joel 2:12–13, NASB95)

“As Samuel turned to go, Saul seized the edge of his robe, and it tore. So Samuel said to him, “The LORD has torn the kingdom of Israel from you today and has given it to your neighbor, who is better than you. “Also the Glory of Israel will not lie or change His mind; for He is not a man that He should change His mind.”” (1 Samuel 15:27–29, NASB95)

--I was going to respond to the rest of your post later.

[dizerner]

So the forgetting is metaphorical and not literal? Hmm, where else might we apply a principle like that... where indeed.

It's not wrong to realize metaphor must exist, and so we all have to draw the literal line somewhere.

as really comparable to God's dealings in the various OT texts where he speaks as if the future is not yet settled and can go a number of ways, good or bad.

See, there's a fundamental logical error being smuggled into the presupposition of this statement, a false dichotomy.

A foreknown future can STILL be unsettled, and there is no logical rule that uncertainty can only exist in the realm of the future.

The truth is, from a LOGICAL point of view, your future actions are not even uncertain—they will be what they will be and that will not change.

To insist that means they are therefore not free, is to misunderstand what freedom really means.

Freedom has nothing to do with something being unknown or not. Freedom has to do with the supernatural quality of having been able to have done otherwise. Your past decisions are still free. They do NOT lose their freedom because you cannot now change them. They were done FREELY.

And every sentence of his argument Boyd permeates this presupposed logical fallacy as true without ever proving it, he is acting like it is true with no proof for the basis of his "proof". That is like the Calvinist "proving" determinism by insisting God working all things according to his will necessarily excludes freedom as God's will.

You see the Calvinist approaches the text with presuppositions about what it has to mean—it HAS to mean. He too would want you to read his arguments over and over and over and meditate on them, because that is called brain washing, because no longer are you thinking about the presuppositions, you are being trained to believe the presuppositions are necessarily true and losing more and more sight of the fact that there even ARE any presuppositions. You are being trained to think your argument and position is self-evident, and eventually, it will so convince you, you will no longer be able to think outside that box anymore.

But hey. Obviously what I'm saying isn't working for whatever reason, and I do get depressed about that. Maybe it's my fault, maybe it's nobody's fault, maybe it's your fault, I don't know.

At the end of the day, only God knows each of our consciences I guess.

[dizerner]

interesting discussion
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jFixtJ7d0QY

[njd83]

Can you define your terms?

Unsettled?

Uncertain?

Foreknown?

Freedom?

Free will?

Past actions still being free?

Future actions being the same in freeness as past completed actions?

I don't understand how or why you are making these types of claims about the similarity between the past and future.

I think the difference between our conclusions maybe be that if your presupposition that "God is outside of time", which would then give a different take on time itself, the past, present, future and free will choices, etc.

I would rather take the future to be consisting of, at least in part, various possible future destinies which depend on free will and circumstances. Of course God does speak of foreknowledge of certain things. That's fine.

I think you define time itself very differently than I do, and maybe Boyd does. So I can start to understand your claim that I am trying to brainwash a "logical difference" [in myself, edit], but you may also have a presupposition that you are asserting which comes to different conclusions.

Again I think this is a lower level fundamental disagreement or misunderstanding on the view of time, existence and reality itself, which is leading to disagreements on higher level topics.

It would be nice to know our fundamental disagreements on these lower level views of existence, reality and time so I can think about the starting points we are coming from.

[njd83]

I am watching the video, so far its interesting.

But already I am getting the feeling that there is a presupposition "imposed" upon God about foreknowledge, which is not necessarily the case.

"I know what I will do, but I will no necessarily do it"

Its imposing this idea on the texts and God. Its reinterpreting the whole of the texts with this idea.

It seems both sides of like.... EVERY single theological disagreement seem to be doing this to some extent.

[njd83]

EDITED:

[dizerner]

Another interesting discussion:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-wbrIEey3BI&t=1290s

[njd83]

EDITED:

I feel like people make up this terminology to make something so simple so complicated

I have taken a logic course in philosophy and math/cs related discrete math course, btw

For example, making a difference between what someone "will do" and what they "necessarily will do". Like, who thought that up, and why did they?

Again it feels like a manufactured argument to maintain Traditional Foreknowledge theology

I want to remind you, Augustine, who had HUGE impact on the future church after 400s, was probably wrong about all kinds of theological stuff.

Also, what about manufacturing arguments in the other direction, like "What if Foreknowledge is about possibilities also, not certainties?" Like, Jesus was Foreknown before the foundation of the world, IF the world Fell. It was Foreknown by God what He would do, coming into the world to reconcile the world to himself through incarnation, IF it fell.

"God can innately know the Truth Value of the Proposition" "But you fulfilled the Truth Value when you ate lunch".

How do we know his assertion is true? In the texts God acts as if he does NOT know innately the Truth Values of certain propositions. See the various quotes above in this thread. But we are imposing Complete and Exhaustive Foreknowledge on ALL the texts regardless of what they are plainly saying and intended to convey, IN ORDER to hold to Foreknowledge. Its so manufactured.