What is a shame? This is -> someone who knows there is no Bible verse that says there that God has exhaustive foreknowledge preaches to others as if it did.
There is no verse which says man has free will either, but we do.
And then several on here have shown verses that show God changing his mind, being sorry, regretting even his own actions... And we show verses where God completely didn't even fulfill the prophecy he proclaimed he would fulfill.
It's interesting that open -theists and a -theists have the same take on scripture and the weaknesses of God.
[The terms were acceptable to god -- remember, he is supposed to be omniscient and know the future -- so he gave victory to Jephthah, and the first whatsoever that greeted him upon his glorious return was his daughter, as god surely knew would happen, if god is god. True to his vow, the general made a human sacrifice of his only child to god!] -- Judges 11:29-34
Why is this theology sooooo important? No Bible verse to support it, leaps of faith to believe it, and asserted impossible ideas to support it.
Jim Hilston has asked the same of you....
What is the mission and purpose of the Open Theist? To secure for themselves freedom from God, total autonomy and final authority.
How does the Open Theist set about to accomplish this? The steps are as follow:
(1) Under the guise of "freeing" God from any association with evil, the Open Theist strips God of His essential and transcendent attributes, i.e. His omniscience, omnipotence, omnipresence, impassibility and immutability;
(2) Under the guise of extolling God's hatred of evil, the Open Theist over-emphasizes and distorts God's imminent attributes, i.e. that He is living, loving, good, personal and relational;
(3) Under the guise of affirming justice, and all the while ignoring its true definition, the Open Theist makes man completely and totally autonomous by insisting that man's will must have libertarian freedom, otherwise God could not justly hold them accountable;
(4) Under the guise of affirming genuine love, and all the while ignoring its true definition, the Open Theist makes man the final authority by insisting that man must choose for himself whether or not God will save him.
What methods are used by the Open Theist to accomplish this?
(1) They sit in judgment of God by seizing upon apparent contradictions in the Bible, and explain them by declaring God's ignorance;
(2) They sit in judgment of God by seizing upon apparent contradictions in the Bible, and explain them by declaring God's lack of foresight;
(3) They sit in judgment of God by seizing upon finite and figurative descriptions of God as changing and emoting, and to explain them by declaring God's ignorance and lack of foresight.
These are the methods employed to one degree or another by every Open Theist I've encountered over the past eleven years. They takes a couple passages of scripture that seem to contradict, and eisegetically use them as prooftexts for his their theology. Do they bother to study them out to see what the verses really mean? No, there's no reason to. It says what it says. Nevermind that the concept of God actually changing his mind is contrary to the decretive will of God demonstrated from Genesis to Revelation. Instead the Open Theist jumps on the apparent contradiction and declares (by implication): See! See! Either God is less than God, or else the Bible contradicts itself. And since the latter cannot be true, the former must be. By insisting that God has actually, non-figuratively, changed His mind, you've made God less than God.
And such is the mission and purpose of Open Theism. If a passage seems to say that God is fickle, don't even consider that it might be a figure of speech intended to emphasize rich, poignant, and wonderfully important insights that the original audience would have readily understood. Use it instead to prove that God is fickle. If a passage seems to say that God is too dumb to see something coming (i.e. is surprised by something), don't even consider that it might be a figure of speech intended to emphasize rich, poignant, and wonderfully important insights that the original audience would have readily understood. Instead, use it to prove that God is a dimwit. If a passage seems to say that God is ignorant, don't even consider that it might be a figure of speech intended to emphasize rich, poignant, and wonderfully important insights that the original audience would have readily understood. Use it to prove that God is ignorant. And so on.
What is so wrong with the O.V.? It unifies the scripture, and it shuts the mouth of the atheist who sees the holes that would exist in the word had exhaustive foreknowledge actually been included.
I'll let Jim Hilston answer this as well....
The Open Theist will misquote the scripure to deny that God is the author of confusion and evil. The Open Theist attempts to use God's own word to tear Him down and baldly asks the Settled Theist: "Is God the author of confusion or not?" The answer is yes. God is the author of everything. God is infinite, unbounded, supreme. Nothing is greater than God; God is not subordinate to anything, not time, not man, not man's judgment, not man's will. Yet the Open Theist will readily and eagerly seize upon any verse they can twist to make God subordinate to all of these. And since God's attributes of being "good, personal, living, relational and loving" take priority over everything else, then He really can't do anything, which is what has been demonstrated abundantly in this forum for more than a decade. It is abundantly evident in the inability of any Open Theist to tell me one thing that God actually, actively is doing in their lives on a daily basis. What is God actively doing in your life right this moment, patman? The Open Theist has no answer.
What are the results of Open Theist theology?
(1) God is reduced to an incidental being who does not really, actually, actively DO anything;
(2) Man is exalted to a level of total autonomy and final authority on all matters related his own life and eternal state.
The O.V. will be a revolutionary change for the church one day. It will usher in many converts to Christ who would have denied him before because the S.V. theology. I wish you guys would see the simple fact that with no bible verse for it(Lonster, my PatPowers tell me I should add this -> not only is there no verse, there is only shaky evidence for it, and plenty of contrary evidence for the best supporting evidence, just look at any of Bob Hill's recent posts for that) and because there is no verse, those who believe it are actually putting words in the Bibles mouth, adding to scripture.
Patrick, the idea that God doesn't know something isn't new. Lucifer obviously believed he might escape punishment. It's my contention that the a-theists will simply say, "See, we were right! Those lousy Christians are finally understanding that there is no God, at least not a God who is more powerful than we are ourselves!".
Rob