With her most recent post, Poly abundantly and embarrassingly demonstrates why one should never bring a pair of blunt lefty scissors to a sword fight.
Likewise, non-Open Theists, like the human writers of scripture, already understood God's immutable essence and decrees. God knew this, too. So when God said He repented, He expected the astute reader to immediately catch the figure of speech and to pay special attention to the powerful figurative meaning conveyed thereby, which is quite often the opposite of what the phrase would appear to say apart from its obvious context.
God often uses figures of speech that bring rich emphasis and poignant depth of meaning to what could be otherwise stated in a less rich, less emphatic, less poignant and a less deep manner. But where would the fun be in that? Figures of speech bring a wonderful clarity, power and interest to language, which is why God designed language to work the way it does.
There is no deficit in God's ability to communicate. The deficit lies in the humanistic mind of the Opposable Thumb Theist who refuses to worship a God who isn't just like them. The deficit lies in the existentialist mind of the Sand God worshipper who refuses to revere a God who has no choice but to be good, favoring a conception of God who is fully capable of evil and has reneged on many a promise, thereby contradicting His own Word and denigrating His own name.
Because Open Theists have a mental disorder. The rest of Christendumb has no trouble understanding who and what God is, what He wants and desires from us. God does indeed use terms we can all understand (unless one is a proponent of Open Deism, which is a mental disorder that precludes rational discourse and discursive reasoning).Poly said:Why is it that the all powerful God that is described by the SVer is unable to express who and what He is, and what it is that He wants and desires from us in terms we can understand?
This is why Unsettled Deists should really shut up instead spouting off about stuff of which they have so little understanding. It's embarrassing. Poly, do you even have the slightest modicum of interest regarding the purpose of figures of speech in the Bible? Do you have the faintest clue?Poly said:... Why is an all powerful God so challenged in translating what it is that He wants us to know of Him, He ends up (according to the SVer) having to say the very opposite of what He means? Is this really too hard for God?
Non-Open Theists, like the human writers of scripture, already understood that Jesus was a human being and not a slab of wood with hinges. God knew this, too. So when Jesus said, "I am the Door," God expected the astute reader to immediately catch the figure of speech and to pay special attention to the powerful figurative meaning conveyed thereby, which is quite often the opposite of what the phrase would appear to say apart from its obvious context.Poly said:... If He said He repented in His word, yet He didn't really meant it, is it really that hard to let us know that He really didn't mean it?
Likewise, non-Open Theists, like the human writers of scripture, already understood God's immutable essence and decrees. God knew this, too. So when God said He repented, He expected the astute reader to immediately catch the figure of speech and to pay special attention to the powerful figurative meaning conveyed thereby, which is quite often the opposite of what the phrase would appear to say apart from its obvious context.
God often uses figures of speech that bring rich emphasis and poignant depth of meaning to what could be otherwise stated in a less rich, less emphatic, less poignant and a less deep manner. But where would the fun be in that? Figures of speech bring a wonderful clarity, power and interest to language, which is why God designed language to work the way it does.
There is no deficit in God's ability to communicate. The deficit lies in the humanistic mind of the Opposable Thumb Theist who refuses to worship a God who isn't just like them. The deficit lies in the existentialist mind of the Sand God worshipper who refuses to revere a God who has no choice but to be good, favoring a conception of God who is fully capable of evil and has reneged on many a promise, thereby contradicting His own Word and denigrating His own name.