ARCHIVE: Open Theism part 1

[Clete]

Greetings,

Greetings to you as well and welcome to TOL!

Isaiah is very, if we must use the word, Calvinistic

Only if you have Calvinist colored classes on while reading it.

Isaiah 45:7
"I form light and create darkness, I make well-being and create calamity, I am the Lord, who does all these things."

This verse could actually be used to argue against your position.
Notice that darkness and calamity are presented in a parallelism here. Darkness is the lack of light and it is the light which God actually created, the darkness is simply the absence of that which God has created - the opposite of it, if you will. Similarly, as is implied by the parallelism, calamity is the absence of God's created well-being. This only makes sense because "light" and "well-being" in a moral sense would require an alternatives to choose from.

Isaiah 14:24
"The Lord of hosts has sworn: 'As I have planned, so shall it be, and as I have purposed, so shall it stand.'"

Okay, so God does what He wants. How does this even begin to argue for Calvinism?

In addition there are several prophecies that did not come to pass, which would tend to argue against your out of context use of this verse.

Isaiah 14:27
"For the Lord of hosts has purposed, and who will annul it? His hand is stretched out, and who will turn it back?"

No one can over power God and keep Him from doing something that He Himself wants to do but in actual fact Moses was successful as getting God to stay His hand against the nation of Israel, not by force of course but nevertheless, it sort of kills your argument here.
Again, nothing here about Calvinism.

In Isaiah 10 the king of Assyria is used by God as the rod of His anger to punish Israel. Then God turn around and punishes the king of Assyria for what God Himself used the king for. Go read it. It is really something.

The King of Assyria, as is true of any King or anyone else for that matter, could have repented and then none of that would have happened. There is nothing immoral or unrighteous about using one's enemies and then punishing them for being evil (i.e. an enemy of God) and so once again, there is nothing here about Calvinism.

Isaiah, over and over and over again call God Sovereign. I don't see how someone could say that Isaiah is does not support the complete Sovereignty of God over all things; including calamity. (Is. 45:7)

The word sovereign means "highest authority" it does not mean "control freak". God is absolutely the highest authority in existence and all authority that exists elsewhere was delegated by Him and can be recalled at any time He chooses. Calling God sovereign is not Calvinistic.

One more, but this is from Jeremiah.

Jeremiah 10:23
"I know, O Lord, that the way of man is not in himself,
that it is not in man who walks to direct his steps."

Eight chapters later Jeremiah blows your whole worldview out of the water....

Jeremiah 18 :7 The instant I speak concerning a nation and concerning a kingdom, to pluck up, to pull down, and to destroy it, 8 if that nation against whom I have spoken turns from its evil, I will repent of the disaster that I thought to bring upon it. 9 And the instant I speak concerning a nation and concerning a kingdom, to build and to plant it, 10 if it does evil in My sight so that it does not obey My voice, then I will repent concerning the good with which I said I would benefit it.​

Resting in Him,
Clete

 

[Philetus]

Greetings,

Isaiah is very, if we must use the word, Calvinistic

...................

Grace and peace-

Danjoeblue7

:crackup:
You must if you are going to defend his theological position and allow it to shape your view of the present and future and especially if you are going to use those glasses Clete mentioned to interpret scripture.

Grace, peace and longsuffering,
Philetus

 

[Yorzhik]

Huh... they deleted my threads.

Typical of Settled Viewers to have such an attitude.

My mistake. Admin moved my threads and invited me to start another one.

 

[Johnny Boy]

Enyart's argument is the most covoluted argument I've seen on this delima.

Nonetheless, he might in some distorted way have some glimpse of truth.

Enyart would be better off defining good and evil first. Morality is derived through human reason. Even Enyart's distorted argument is through his "reason."

This moral consistency doesn't work. If one act of a person such as commiting theft is a sin then a hundred good acts does not erase the sin.

Enyart seems to be trying to say you have these three God heads of the trinity checking up on one another. This is similar to the Greek Gods where you had a heirarchy of Gods and even when they commited bad acts in the end it was all balanced out.

A description of God's nature argument is the same as the track record if we see God kills people in the Old Testament, then it is an evil act no matter if God does a hundred good acts later.

What Enyart should try to say is that as we do in just war, the killing is incidental, but the goal is to maintain justice or preserve the good.

So if you try to say God decides what is moral and leave human reason out of it, you slip into arbitrariness.

Open theism is the second horn and Enyart hasn't shown any way around it or realized that open theism opens the door to it.

 

[Clete]

Enyart's argument is the most covoluted argument I've seen on this delima.

Nonetheless, he might in some distorted way have some glimpse of truth.

Enyart would be better off defining good and evil first. Morality is derived through human reason. Even Enyart's distorted argument is through his "reason."

This moral consistency doesn't work. If one act of a person such as commiting theft is a sin then a hundred good acts does not erase the sin.

Enyart seems to be trying to say you have these three God heads of the trinity checking up on one another. This is similar to the Greek Gods where you had a heirarchy of Gods and even when they commited bad acts in the end it was all balanced out.

A description of God's nature argument is the same as the track record if we see God kills people in the Old Testament, then it is an evil act no matter if God does a hundred good acts later.

What Enyart should try to say is that as we do in just war, the killing is incidental, but the goal is to maintain justice or preserve the good.

So if you try to say God decides what is moral and leave human reason out of it, you slip into arbitrariness.

Open theism is the second horn and Enyart hasn't shown any way around it or realized that open theism opens the door to it.

There is no way you actually read the material. (skimming over it doesn't count)

When you've read it and convince me that you have after having now lied about having done so, maybe I'll respond. Until then go waste someone else's time.

:Clete:

 

[Johnny Boy]

Read it. Refuted it. Tried to help you think for yourself, but that's obviously not easy.

Bye for this thread.

 

[Philetus]

Dad, who was that mascara-ed man?

Why that was Jonny Euphythro, son.

Do you think we will ever see him again?

I don't know, its a real delima. But he did leave you this tin bullett and a super duper decoder ring.

Gosh, dad. I hope he comes back.

Me too, son. Now be a good boy and go get my rifle.

 

[Lon]

Dad, who was that mascara-ed man?

Why that was Jonny Euphythro, son.

Do you think we will ever see him again?

I don't know, its a real delima. But he did leave you this tin bullett and a super duper decoder ring.

Gosh, dad. I hope he comes back.

Me too, son. Now be a good boy and go get my rifle.

Who was that masked man? (going for some popcorn-two buckets if this is a serial) Do "The Shadow" next. I always like that one. Or even those old B Western serials. "Well, I'll tell ya Pilgrim......"

 

[Lon]

1. I'm using scripture to interpret scripture.

2. John is no Calvinist either.

3. God draws those who are "contrite in spirit, ect.

4. God calls to repentence those who are not in Him.

2. No, it'd have to be Calvin was a Johnist

3. Agree, but our exegesis on Isaiah may differ

4. Agree, does it have a different meaning or emphasis in OV?

 

[Yorzhik]

Dad, who was that mascara-ed man?

Why that was Jonny Euphythro, son.

Do you think we will ever see him again?

I don't know, its a real delima. But he did leave you this tin bullett and a super duper decoder ring.

Gosh, dad. I hope he comes back.

Me too, son. Now be a good boy and go get my rifle.

:rotfl:

 

[Philetus]

My mistake. Admin moved my threads and invited me to start another one.

PM the link to me.

I'm wondering if the question Must God live with the limitations inherent in the kind of world God chooses to create? gets at the whole issue of Open Theism with a more 'back door' approach that might not scare hard-core Calvinists off so quickly.

Philetus

 

[Clete]

Read it. Refuted it. Tried to help you think for yourself, but that's obviously not easy.

Bye for this thread.

You called his argument convoluted.

Yeah, great refutation there bone head.

You either didn't read it or you're the stupidest person to hit TOL in some time. I believe the former.

Resting in Him,
Clete

 

[Johnny Boy]

Clete, I refuted it by the post before that statement. It's not my fault you bow and worship this guy like a cult leader.

I read it thoroughly, and it adds up to the same arbitrariness of the delima.

Whatever the Trinity decides is "good" would still be completely arbitrary whether its consistent on its arbitrary decisions or not.

 

[Clete]

Clete, I refuted it by the post before that statement. It's not my fault you bow and worship this guy like a cult leader.

I read it thoroughly, and it adds up to the same arbitrariness of the delima.

Whatever the Trinity decides is "good" would still be completely arbitrary whether its consistent on its arbitrary decisions or not.

I thought you said goodbye to this thread? :think:

You didn't refute it, you simply disagreed with it. That's not what the word 'refute' means. Your "convoluted" commentary was in the first post you made on the thread after I posted Bob's argument. You should try to keep in mind that the whole conversation is right here for everyone to see and read.

Further, the argument you just made is further proof that you have not read the material. Bob directly addresses that point.

Resting in Him,
Clete

 

[Johnny Boy]

Clete, do yourself a favour. If you have a problem with my refutation, then you come up with an argument to try to explain that I'm wrong.

All this refering back to Enyart such as "not reading his argument" just shows me #1 you don't know what the debate in question is really about and #2 you cannot follow Enyart's convoluted statement.

Otherwise you would have defended his statement in your own words.

 

[Clete]

Clete, do yourself a favour. If you have a problem with my refutation, then you come up with an argument to try to explain that I'm wrong.

All this refering back to Enyart such as "not reading his argument" just shows me #1 you don't know what the debate in question is really about and #2 you cannot follow Enyart's convoluted statement.

Otherwise you would have defended his statement in your own words.

When you make an actual rebuttal argument (after convincing me that you've read the material) then and only then will I offer a rejoinder. That's how debates work. Just declaring something convoluted doesn't make it so and I don't have to defend against your mere opinion. Until you refute Bob's argument I'll let it stand on it's own and consider the argument tacitly conceded.

Resting in Him,
Clete

 

[Philetus]

BANG!

Good shot, dad.

Thanks, son.

 

[Philetus]

Who was that masked man? (going for some popcorn-two buckets if this is a serial) Do "The Shadow" next. I always like that one. Or even those old B Western serials. "Well, I'll tell ya Pilgrim......"

Butter?

(They always come back.)

 

[Philetus]

Euphythro fails to remember that the 'knowledge of good and evil' wasn't part of the original creation. It resulted from the fall, it wasn't the cause of it.

 

[Clete]

Euphythro fails to remember that the 'knowledge of good and evil' wasn't part of the original creation. It resulted from the fall, it wasn't the cause of it.

I don't think I follow you. It sounds interesting though!

Please elaborate.