The Apostle Paul's Conversion

dizerner

Re: The Apostle Paul's Conversion

Post by dizerner » Fri May 08, 2015 11:18 pm

A reactive God is completely compatible with sovereignty and foreknowledge both Scripturally and logically. God knows both our reactions and his, ahead of time.

dizerner

Re: The Apostle Paul's Conversion

Post by dizerner » Fri May 08, 2015 11:30 pm

He also got angry when God changed his mind and didn't destroy the city. He fully expected Him to do so.
This may have also influenced how little he added the "repent" to his message, as he did not want them to repent. In fact if you look at that passage Jonah himself does not express any surprise at all that God changed his "unqualified" declaration, and you think more than anyone Jonah would understand the message God gave him—he spent several days in a whale for it.

1But it greatly displeased Jonah and he became angry. 2He 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 seems under no misapprehension about it being an unqualified and unconditional declaration of destruction. And Jonah lived in this culture and heard the word direct from God. So Jonah knew there was a chance of repentance and that in the original message was included this possibility, indeed, that it even was the main reason for the message. If God just wanted to destroy Ninevah in an "unqualified" why send a guy to prance around for 40 days just saying the inevitable, that makes very little sense. God would just destroy Ninevah on day one with zero warning. The warning was to allow a period of possible repentance, and not only can we deduce that from the book of Jonah itself, but in the dealings of God all throughout Scripture. Jeremiah contains one of the clearest ways God deals with proclamations of judgment:

At one moment I might speak concerning a nation or concerning a kingdom to uproot, to pull down, or to destroy it; 8 if that nation against which I have spoken turns from its evil, I will relent concerning the calamity I planned to bring on it. 9 Or at another moment I might speak concerning a nation or concerning a kingdom to build up or to plant it; 10 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 [d]bless it.

Really hard to be more clear than this passage is, and this was entirely the ancient Hebrew mindset concerning God's ways. It helps to study the Bible with respect for its supernatural inspired unity and complete holistic context.

Singalphile
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Re: The Apostle Paul's Conversion

Post by Singalphile » Sat May 09, 2015 12:25 am

Open theism! Always an interesting diversion. :)

Regarding the OP: I agree with steve7150's first post, but also with the last sentence of Homer's first post.

Does God make decisions, and, if so, does He know what He will decide before He decides? The most common answer might be that it's a mystery. Given that, I don't think it is wise to make assertions about the nature of time vis-a-vis God and the (non-)existence of future events and so on. People often will not move the mystery up ahead of their own opinion.

In this case, I do not think it's because Scripture requires a particular affirmation. Verses can reasonably be listed on multiple sides of the issue. Scripture generally speaks as if God is relational, that He makes decisions and He responds to us. To my mind, this best fits a reality for us wherein He chose to create rational, willful beings (like Himself) and an "open" future. But it might not, and so I can't say. In any case, certainly, "He knows all things."
... that all may honor the Son just as they honor the Father. John 5:23

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RickC
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Re: The Apostle Paul's Conversion

Post by RickC » Sat May 09, 2015 5:58 am

Hello Paidion --
You wrote:I don't understand you, Rick. That which you quoted above is one of Greg Boyd's exact statements.

Some of what you wrote above sounds more like William Craig's "counter-factual knowledge" than it does like open theism.
First, if Greg Boyd said, "All open theists believe that God is truly omniscient, because He knows everything that is possible to know," this would accurately represent all Open Theists. But it wouldn't fully explain Boyd's view.

Second, I'm assuming you were referring to what I wrote (below) as sounding like WLC's 'Middle Knowlege'.
1) God knows all things
2) God knows some things as settled . . . .
(and determines them as such)
3) God knows other things as possibilities
4) God knows all possibilities as if they were certainties . . . .
5) And has a response ready for each
[unquote]

I agree that WLC's views are similar to Open Theism; being some place in between traditional Arminianism and Open Theism. What makes Boyd's -- (or perhaps I should just say 'my' view) -- different is the belief that God knows all things, including possibilities-as-if-they-were-certainties. WLC wouldn't go so far, but would say that while God knows all possibilities, He, in fact, knows which will be chosen. In this sense, WLC just goes a bit further than Arminians. But I don't see much difference, since God knows that which will obtain.

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RickC
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Re: The Apostle Paul's Conversion

Post by RickC » Sat May 09, 2015 6:14 am

Hello dizerner --
(I'm assuming to me, you) wrote:You really think God had no idea Hezekiah would ask for him to change things? Free will interaction might seem paradoxical, but not if God's knowledge does not influence his interactions.
I think God knew that Hezekiah might not ask (as if it were a certainty), and that God knew Hezekiah might ask (as if it were a certainty). There's no telling how many other possibilities God foreknew.

dizerner

Re: The Apostle Paul's Conversion

Post by dizerner » Sat May 09, 2015 7:12 am

If God had exhaustive foreknowledge that Hezekiah's life would be extended, why was He telling Hezekiah he would die soon?
If God knew Adam would sin, why not just shove the fruit down his mouth. This kind of question really proves nothing, there is no real logical difficulty only an imagined one. God let's real-time real world free decisions play out, so the people actually do interact and have a legitimate chance to act in free will. God's knowledge is purely from an observational point of view, it does not actually affect his interactions.
Was God lying? Or was Hezekiah's soon to be death a possibility?
This is simple, please follow the logic: God's knowing what Hezekiah's free choice would be, does not invalidate it from being a real free choice from Hezekiah. Otherwise why doesn't God right now throw everyone in hell and everyone in heaven that will be there and get this dumb mess over with?! Because God's knowledge of future free will decisions does not actually cross over into God's interactions with people, so that integrity of people's free will choices remain entirely with themselves and in tact.
Greg submitted (and I agree) that God was not lying. Had Hezekiah not sought God and gotten his life extended, he would have died as God said. But things changed (in the realm of possibilities).
Just from a strictly logical point of view we can argue, right, that whatever course of events were going to transpire, that one course of events was the only possibility (as if we would see the future like the past). This one seeming paradox seems to be the driving force behind taking away God's omniscience as if it takes away real freedom from people, when it logically doesn't. God could foreknow a serious of real-time real world free will interactions between him and a person, yet he lets it play out in real-time and the real world with the person's real decisions. This does not mean God didn't know the end from the beginning, it means God respects free will decisions even when he knows them ahead of time.

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RickC
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Re: The Apostle Paul's Conversion

Post by RickC » Sat May 09, 2015 9:12 am

I just wanted to put out Greg Boyd's view (at least from 2008) & a couple of my own thoughts. Outside of that, I think I'm done with the convo.

Thanks!

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Paidion
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Re: The Apostle Paul's Conversion

Post by Paidion » Sat May 09, 2015 10:30 am

Homer, the word "fact" has several different meanings, and you have pointed out one or more of them.

Webster's dictionary also lists the following one:
a piece of information presented as having objective reality
So when I wrote "the fact that the future doesn't exist," I was saying in effect, "the objective reality that the future doesn't exist."
Paidion

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Re: The Apostle Paul's Conversion

Post by dwilkins » Sat May 09, 2015 10:33 am

I think the urge to turn every statement in scripture into a theological proposition would sound strange to people like Paul. It seems to me that all he was doing was trying to declare himself to have authority on the level of a major OT prophet so he mirrored the language Jeremiah uses to open his book:

Jer 1:1 The words of Jeremiah, the son of Hilkiah, one of the priests who were in Anathoth in the land of Benjamin,
Jer 1:2 to whom the word of the LORD came in the days of Josiah the son of Amon, king of Judah, in the thirteenth year of his reign.
Jer 1:3 It came also in the days of Jehoiakim the son of Josiah, king of Judah, and until the end of the eleventh year of Zedekiah, the son of Josiah, king of Judah, until the captivity of Jerusalem in the fifth month.
Jer 1:4 Now the word of the LORD came to me, saying,
Jer 1:5 "Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, and before you were born I consecrated you; I appointed you a prophet to the nations."
Jer 1:6 Then I said, "Ah, Lord GOD! Behold, I do not know how to speak, for I am only a youth."
Jer 1:7 But the LORD said to me, "Do not say, 'I am only a youth'; for to all to whom I send you, you shall go, and whatever I command you, you shall speak.
Jer 1:8 Do not be afraid of them, for I am with you to deliver you, declares the LORD."
Jer 1:9 Then the LORD put out his hand and touched my mouth. And the LORD said to me, "Behold, I have put my words in your mouth.

Doug

dizerner

Re: The Apostle Paul's Conversion

Post by dizerner » Sat May 09, 2015 10:47 am

RickC wrote:I just wanted to put out Greg Boyd's view (at least from 2008) & a couple of my own thoughts. Outside of that, I think I'm done with the convo.

Thanks!
I was interacting more with Greg. Let him reply. :P

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