Another philosophical problem with Calvinism

[Guest]

Like I said, he will have much to answer for at the Judgement, and I would hate to be in his shoes. I am quite sure God puts up with those who misrepresent what reformed folk believe to a point, but misrepresenting God Himself? Nope, he stands upon holy ground and blasphemes the creator, and that is a different matter entirely.

You my friend have IMO an attitude that your opinions are authoritative. Perhaps in your own mind, but in the end, opinions are just that.

[Guest]

Isaiah 46:8-11
8 “Remember this and stand firm,
recall it to mind, you transgressors,
9 remember the former things of old;
for I am God, and there is no other;
I am God, and there is none like me,
10 declaring the end from the beginning
and from ancient times things not yet done,
saying, ‘My counsel shall stand,
and I will accomplish all my purpose,’
11 calling a bird of prey from the east,
the man of my counsel from a far country.
I have spoken, and I will bring it to pass;
I have purposed, and I will do it.

The passage to which you refer I believe is Isaiah 46:9b-10a: "I am God, and there is no one like Me, Declaring the end from the beginning." Some traditional and neoclassical interpreters, most strongly in the Calvinist and Reformed heritage, understand this verse and other like it to support a universal divine determinism. However, I believe the language and the context of Isaiah must be stretched inappropriately to arrive at this conclusion. Let me explain.

Contextually, Isaiah 46 is dominated by the theme of God's reassurance of deliverance. (1) The pseudo-gods could not rescue Israel & have themselves been exiled (Foil against which to contrast God, 46:1-2); (2) But Israel should be assured that God will continue to give them support and that he will deliver them (Claim, 46:3-4; 12-13), (3) because he is not like powerless idols (Warrant, 46:5-7), and (4), because, as they should remember, he has repeatedly delivered them in the past as he had promised (Warrant, 46:8-11).

Since the conceptual boundaries in this immediate context are limited to the deliverance of God's people, I would suggest that an extrapolation from "I (repeatedly) declare the end (deliverance) from the beginning," (i.e., Noah & family; Lot & family; Israel from Egypt) to a dogmatic universal principle (like "God absolutely determine's all things") is exegetically suspect.

Furthermore, it is literarily unnecessary. Reconsider the text: "I am God, and there is no one like Me, Declaring the end from the beginning." Note that he does not indicate that he declares all ends from the beginning. To infer from the text that God means that he determines absolutely everything is grammatically/syntactically unnecessary. He declares what will be as it relates to this specific occasion, not universally; neither does he declare the specific means to that end. Tangentially, I would make a seemingly simple but crucial distinction regarding our conception of foreknowledge which is undergirded by this text: God does not declare the end because he knows it (as if it had already occurred), but he knows what the end will be because he declares it, i.e., he has determined to do it. God's foreknowledge derives from his determinism, not vice versa, and his determinism is not absolute or meticulous in all cases.

Though I'm not sure of the exact meaning of your first question, I would say, "No," it does not simply mean that he can differentiate between them. That would seem to imply God was an impotent spectator of sorts, as I believe the various doctrines of Simple Foreknowledge do when carried to their logical ends, and not the passionate relational person that he has revealed himself to be. It means he has, in Isaiah 46, declared a specific end that he plans to bring about, though the means to that end are open, and extrapolation to absolute determinism is unwarranted.

Regarding your second question, I believe you are on the right track (although I prefer to avoid the term "simply"). God has declared some clear eschatological specifics: Jesus will return; he will resurrect the just and the unjust; all will be judged, etc. But, to use a Southern Baptist confession, he will accomplish these things "In his own time and in his own way."

Since "his own way" includes his sovereign free choice to give real freedom of choice to humans, some things God can not "declare," for the jury is still out. For example, God has declared that there will be a resurrection of the just and the unjust; that has been divinely determined and is therefore certain. However, which category a person will occupy (just or unjust) depends largely on her free response to the grace of God and therefore has not yet been/ can not be yet "declared." That part of the future is open.

Consider two texts which demonstrate how our choices significantly influence the course of history. If king Saul had exercised his freedom differently, the Judeo-Christian heritage might today speak of a "Saulite" kingdom rather than a Davidic kingdom (1 Sam 13:13). Furthermore, God explicitly states that some of the future is conditioned by the free choices of humans, and therefore open until those choices are made (cf. Luke 13.3). But God also makes some promises which are conditional, though he does not explicitly state them to be so (i.e., 1 Sam 2:27-30).

This brings us back to Isaiah 46. While the immediate context seems to contain an unconditional determination by God, other passages in the broader context of scripture suggest that the actual fruition of this particular instance of deliverance may be conditional. Deut 30:1-10 and Jeremiah 29:11-14 portray God's planned deliverance/restoration as conditioned upon repentance/return to the Lord (see also Neh 1:9; Deut 4:29-31; and others). Therefore, even here, as with Eli in 1 Sam 2:27-30, the plan may be conditional without God explicitly saying so.

Again, thank you for your inquiry. I hope I have been of some assistance. May the Lord bless you in your pilgrimage, and bless your flock through you.

Kevin James Gilbert
Adjunct Faculty, David Lipscomb University

Source

[Guest]

It appears that someone is commenting on this thread here.

http://www.reformed.org/forums/showthre ... 6#post7246

[Guest]

So you're an open-theist then? Just wondering.
And Derek, for some reason it is always encouraging to see your little face there, smiling away

[Guest]

Isaiah 45:5-7
5 I am the Lord, and there is no other,
besides me there is no God;
I equip you, though you do not know me,
6 that people may know, from the rising of the sun
and from the west, that there is none besides me;
I am the Lord, and there is no other.
7 I form light and create darkness,
I make well-being and create calamity,
I am the Lord, who does all these things.

Amos 3:6
6 Is a trumpet blown in a city,
and the people are not afraid?
Does disaster come to a city,
unless the Lord has done it?

Lamentations 3:37-38
37 Who has spoken and it came to pass,
unless the Lord has commanded it?
38 Is it not from the mouth of the Most High
that good and bad come?

Jeremiah 18:11
11"Thus saith the Lord; Behold, I frame evil
against you, and devise a device against you."

Ezekiel 20:25-26
25"I gave them also statutes that were not good,
26 and judgments whereby they should not live.
And I polluted them in their own gifts...

First, let's take a look at what Glenn Miller has to say about what evil is, and if He made evil:

(1) What is evil?
(2) God made all things, right? did He make evil. [/b]

(1) Evil is...intentions and intentional acts (both being 'acts' or 'personally directed events' and not 'things') of intelligent agents, that violate the God-derived principles of love, fairness, or loyalty.

(2) No, 'acts' and 'events' are not 'made'--they are 'done'. God made and created 'things' and 'agents', not their 'acts' or 'events'...He 'did' His own 'acts' (of course), but other agents 'do' their own 'acts'. So God did not 'make evil' (the phrase is meaningless and nonsensical) --> Source


Secondly, let's look at what internet apologist JP Holding has to say about these passages:

Is God the source of evil, according to these passages? In the first four verses, the word "evil" is ra. This word does indicate moral evil elsewhere. But there are meanings offered in Strong's for this word like "adversity" and words of similar nature. Ra can therefore be used in both senses.

Now with this in mind, how do we determine the proper translation of ra in this case? The answer is simple, once we consider the literary parallel in the verse in question. Note the antithesis in the first part of the verse from Isaiah: light/darkness. The second part of the verse must also be therefore reckoned as an antithesis. The word we translate "prosperity" is a familiar one: shalom. We commonly translate this word "peace" - but it is NEVER used to indicate moral goodness, the antithesis of moral evil! We must therefore translate "ra" in terms of its specified antithesis, and that is why it is thoroughly proper to give it the meaning of calamity/disaster/adversity here. (Presumably skeptics would "argue by outrage" and say that God has no right to cause us adversity. For more on this, see Glenn Miller's article on this verse.) The verse from Amos offers a similar parallel, to the blowing of a trumpet -- a sign of calamitous judgment, not moral evil. The same is the case for Lamentations, where ra is placed in opposition to a word that means "beauty" or "bounty" or joy, and the verse after which asks, "Wherefore doth a living man complain, a man for the punishment of his sins?" The verse prior in Jeremiah ("If it do evil in my sight, that it obey not my voice, then I will repent of the good, wherewith I said I would benefit them.") uses the same word for "good" in opposition.

The verses in Zeke tell us that God handed the Israelites over to their sinful desires when they refused to obey him. God allowed the Israelites to govern themselves by pagan statutes as part of their punishment -- in other words, they "asked for it". God is not the source of this sort of evil; we are! ---> Source

[Guest]

So you're an open-theist then? Just wondering.
And Derek, for some reason it is always encouraging to see your little face there, smiling away

Not sure if you're addressing me there, but no, I'm not an Open-theist. I don't think that they are hell bound heretics either. I just disagree with them (I'm not of the opinion that those that disagree with me are heretics).

I think that much of the problem that people have with them is that they misunderstand the position.

They think that God doesn't know the future, because the future hasn't happened yet, not becuase He lacks the power to do all possible things. They think He doesn't know the future for the same reason we think that He can't make a "square-circle" or "exist and not exist" simultaneously.

Again, I disagree with them, but I think they can be Christians.

God bless,

[Guest]

Brother Derek,
I was talking to SoaringEagle.

[Guest]

So you're an open-theist then?

You could say I lean towards being such, yep, and I await your response to my post on 2 Peter 3:9

[Guest]

I think that much of the problem that people have with them is that they misunderstand the position.

They think that God doesn't know the future, because the future hasn't happened yet, not becuase He lacks the power to do all possible things. They think He doesn't know the future for the same reason we think that He can't make a "square-circle" or "exist and not exist" simultaneously.

Here is a summary of openness theology
According to openness theology, the triune God of love has, in almighty power, created all that is and is sovereign over all. In freedom God decided to create beings capable of experiencing his love. In creating us the divine intention was that we would come to experience the triune love and respond to it with love of our own and freely come to collaborate with God towards the achievement of his goals. We believe love is the primary characteristic of God because the triune Godhead has eternally loved even prior to any creation. Divine holiness and justice are aspects of the divine love towards creatures, expressions of God's loving concern for us. Love takes many forms-it can even be experienced as wrath when the lover sees the beloved destroying herself and others.

Second, God has, in sovereign freedom, decided to make some of his actions contingent upon our requests and actions. God elicits our free collaboration in his plans. Hence, God can be influenced by what we do and God truly responds to what we do. God genuinely interacts and enters into dynamic give-and-take relationships with us. That God changes in some respects implies that God is temporal, working with us in time. God, at least since creation, experiences duration.[1] God is everlasting through time rather than timelessly eternal.

Third, the only wise God has chosen to exercise general rather than meticulous providence, allowing space for us to operate and for God to be creative and resourceful in working with us. It was solely God's decision not to control every detail that happens in our lives. Moreover, God has flexible strategies. Though the divine nature does not change, God reacts to contingencies, even adjusting his plans, if necessary, to take into account the decisions of his free creatures. God is endlessly resourceful and wise in working towards the fulfillment of his ultimate goals. Sometimes God alone decides how to accomplish these goals. Usually, however, God elicits human cooperation such that it is both God and humanity who decide what the future shall be. God's plan is not a detailed script or blueprint, but a broad intention that allows for a variety of options regarding precisely how these goals may be reached. What God and people do in history matters. If the Hebrew midwives had feared Pharaoh rather than God and killed the baby boys, then God would have responded accordingly and a different story would have emerged. What people do and whether they come to trust God makes a difference concerning what God does-God does not fake the story of human history.

Fourth, God has granted us the type of freedom (libertarian) necessary for a truly personal relationship of love to develop. Again, this was God's decision, not ours. Despite the fact that we have abused our freedom by turning away from the divine love, God remains faithful to his intentions for creation and this faithful love was manifested most fully in the life and work of Jesus.

Finally, the omniscient God knows all that can be known given the sort of world he created. The content of divine omniscience has been debated in the Christian tradition; between Thomism and Molinism for example. In the openness debate the focus is on the nature of the future: is it fully knowable, fully unknowable or partially knowable and partially unknowable? We believe that God could have known every event of the future had God decided to create a fully determined universe. However, in our view God decided to create beings with indeterministic freedom which implies that God chose to create a universe in which the future is not entirely knowable, even for God. For many open theists the "future" is not a present reality-it does not exist-and God knows reality as it is.

This view may be called dynamic omniscience (it corresponds to the dynamic theory of time rather than the stasis theory). According to this view God knows the past and present with exhaustive definite knowledge and knows the future as partly definite (closed) and partly indefinite (open). God's knowledge of the future contains knowledge of that which is determinate or settled as well as knowledge of possibilities (that which is indeterminate). The determined future includes the things that God has unilaterally decided to do and physically determined events (such as an asteroid hitting our moon). Hence, the future is partly open or indefinite and partly closed or definite and God knows it as such. God is not caught off-guard-he has foresight and anticipates what we will do.

Our rejection of divine timelessness and our affirmation of dynamic omniscience are the most controversial elements in our proposal and the view of foreknowledge receives the most attention. However, the watershed issue in the debate is not whether God has exhaustive definite foreknowledge (EDF) but whether God is ever affected by and responds to what we do. This is the same watershed that divides Calvinism from Arminianism.

- Dr. John Sanders

[Guest]

I would not like to be Boyd on judgement day.

All thanks to God, you will not be the judge.