ARCHIVE: Open Theism part 3

[themuzicman]

Definite or Speculative? Part of the confusion, I believe is your attempt to preserve EDF types of texts and prophetic meaning but ultimately, you'll have to be very clear here. I believe you have made it clear that you reject God's actual foreknowledge of any man. You guys are weird. You jump to the simpleton answer: "He could convince parent to name their child 'Josiah'" to the neglect of him becoming king and his godly actions specifically laid out. It denies your position and this type of answer along with "God can make a rooster crow" are anti-intellectual non-answers that seem purposefully to skirt the issue. I suppose compatiblism is such a bad Open Theist word that such must be avoided no matter how mundane the answer must appear. I don't know, I'm making an educated guess but you shouldn't wonder at the scrutiny of the OV.

Well, then, anyone who answers this question would be simpleton, including you. The fact that you explain everything with one blanket doesn't change that.

You wanted to know how this was possible. I answered. No, Scripture doesn't tell ANYONE how this is possible. That's why we're having the debate.

It seems unfair for you to ask me to speculate on how this is possible, and then chide me for giving a speculative answer.

Again, there are many more concerns about this in the text, like Jesus not losing one of them but for the betrayer. Much more is going on behind all this than a rooster crowing or knowing Peter's mind and heart.

Yeah, and?

I see it more of trying to understand things which remain in His counsel alone and throwing a human answer that anthropomorphs other texts the rest of us take literally.

Umm.. which verses do OVT anthropomorphize that Calvinists don't?

This is another example of under-thinking the problem and giving a hasty answer that doesn't address anything and certainly convinces no one worth their weight. First of all, I still believe we guess and have no EDF even with the weather, or even the sun rising. We know nothing until a thing is done because that is our created limitation. We can mentally acquiesce the sun rising, but the experience of it is the actual and 'how' it rose today compared to yesterday is different for us. I agree that determinations were made for the pattern of the sun and determinations for how we are made and set in motion is no different. We are created beings. I don't see it as an insult but a truth.

Not sure what you're objecting to, here. You asked how you can foreknow rain without causing the rain. I answered you.

It does not escape the truth of the matter, that we are created beings. As such, we have an assembly date. Your LWF has an assembly date. It is a created conception, it is not autonomous.

Are you saying that God is incapable of creating an agent for which He cannot exhaustively know what it will do for every moment of its existence?

No you didn't. Please don't go there, I don't want to do this to you.

The point isn't the force. The point is the isolation. If you put a person in a place where you are their only option, you cannot call any relationship you have with them as loving.

Uhhhggg, another chance to redeem yourself from this. Please do, I don't want to do this to you.

The point is that love requires a free response. I don't know what you're trying to describe, but it's not a loving relationship.

Please think this through a bit. You cannot get around that our love is created. Think about it logically without your feelings involved. It is the truth and you know it. You'll be fine when you get to the other side and understand the truth of this. You absolutely know it is the 100% truth. Your mind is telling you it is so. Follow it to the end.

I never said otherwise. However, the quality of what you're describing as love isn't love.

Just because something is created by God doesn't mean that God has determined it's decisions.

It is not! You are balking at this with some desire to see our love and virtues as somehow elevated above being 'created' things. It is a lie! Face up to it, I want you to see it exactly as it is.

And it is not what you claim. You push this onto me, and I don't embrace it.

Two truthes, in His image: Created.

Created does not equal robot.

This is the second part of the truth. 1) We are created, 2) we are awfully broken.

Now, yes. But that still doesn't equal robot;

It IS true!

By your declaration?

Your objections are not about the truth of these. You can but acknowledge it is all true. I rather think, where these ideas are heading is the objection but I haven't gone there yet. All I've done is given you what is undeniably true: We are created beings. Our love is a created response (thing, expression, etc.). The most perfect love in us is that which was created and existed before the Fall and it's been broken and ill since. Contrast actually is nothing but a broken response (post-Fall). Love was perfect in its created state.

But love is not programming. That's the point. Yes, we were created with the capacity to love. This doesn't mean that we respond as programmed.

I'll ask again in another way: Do you think God is capable of creating a being which is sufficiently free from God's control that its future decisions are unknowable?

Muz

 

[Lon]

Well, then, anyone who answers this question would be simpleton, including you. The fact that you explain everything with one blanket doesn't change that.

Possibly I'm missing something AND guilty of something similar here. I'll try to clarify and understand your position better.

You wanted to know how this was possible. I answered. No, Scripture doesn't tell ANYONE how this is possible. That's why we're having the debate.

It seems unfair for you to ask me to speculate on how this is possible, and then chide me for giving a speculative answer.

Perhaps I'm guilty of giving a simpleton answer myself.

Yeah, and?

Quite probably we assume relevance and meaning extrapolated from each other regarding a short answer so I apologize and will endeavor to clarify.

Looking at the passage where Peter is concerned:

Joh 16:2 They will put you out of the synagogue, yet a time is coming when the one who kills you will think he is offering service to God
Act 8:1 And Saul agreed completely with killing1 him.
Act 8:3 But Saul was trying to destroy the church; entering one house after another, he dragged off both men and women and put them in prison.
Act 9:4 He fell to the ground and heard a voice saying to him, "Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me?"
Act 9:5 So he said, "Who are you, Lord?" He replied, "I am Jesus whom you are persecuting!

Joh 17:12 When I was with them I kept them safe and watched over them in your name that you have given me. Not one of them was lost except the one destined for destruction, so that the scripture could be fulfilled.
Psa 41:9 Even my close friend whom I trusted,
he who shared meals with me, has turned against me.
Act 1:20 "For it is written in the book of Psalms, 'Let his house become deserted, and let there be no one to live in it,' and 'Let another take his position of responsibility.

These are fairly specific concerns when we finally come to the text.

Mat 26:31 Then Jesus said to them, "This night you will all fall away because of me, for it is written:
*'I will strike the shepherd,
and the sheep of the flock will be scattered.'
Mat 26:32 But after I am raised, I will go ahead of you into Galilee."
Mat 26:33 Peter said to him, "If they all fall away because of you, I will never fall away!"
Mat 26:34 Jesus said to him, "I tell you the truth, on this night, before the rooster crows, you will deny me three times."
Mat 26:35 Peter said to him, "Even if I must die with you, I will never deny you." And all the disciples said the same thing.
*Zec 13:7 "Awake, sword, against my shepherd,
against the man who is my associate,"
says the LORD who rules over all.
Strike the shepherd that the flock may be scattered

There is a lot more going on here than just a rooster. While determinism is certain to play here, most OV discussion I've seen is aimed toward a good guess rather than determinism where Peter's will and choice is steered. Either, in my opinion, is bad for logical considerations. Middle knowledge is saying God knew Peter's choices and is relating them, not making Him do it or making a pretty good guess. OV must pick-and-choose which will be their Avant-garde inconsistently in order to say He guesses at some and determines others to preserve a dedication to LWF in response to any detriment to it. This is a presupposition that steers exegesis and must be acknowledged as such. Middle knowledge, while troubling admittedly, does not cause these extreme problems. How He know and how it relates to any sense of choice we have, we do not know for it is never explained. We just try not to go beyond the texts and believe what we see, with some regards and understanding of the trouble it causes. Middle knowledge does seem indicative in scripture.

Umm.. which verses do OVT anthropomorphize that Calvinists don't?

I've spent some time on the prior, so if this doesn't suffice and is too simple, we can come back to it.
1 Samuel 15:29
Act 2:31 Romans 8:29

Not sure what you're objecting to, here. You asked how you can foreknow rain without causing the rain. I answered you.

That foreknowledge does not injure choice and culpability.

Are you saying that God is incapable of creating an agent for which He cannot exhaustively know what it will do for every moment of its existence?

I don't know. Do you? Really? I assert we both do not.

The point isn't the force. The point is the isolation. If you put a person in a place where you are their only option, you cannot call any relationship you have with them as loving.

Okay, I'll ask again, was there anything near love between Creator and creature in the Garden prior to the fall?

The point is that love requires a free response. I don't know what you're trying to describe, but it's not a loving relationship.

One more time for posterity: was there anything near love between Creator and creature in the Garden prior to the fall?

I never said otherwise. However, the quality of what you're describing as love isn't love.

Just because something is created by God doesn't mean that God has determined it's decisions.

The whole point is that it is a 'created' response. I have no problem with this and defiinitely see it as real genuine love. What could God create otherwise?

It is not! You are balking at this with some desire to see our love and virtues as somehow elevated above being 'created' things. It is a lie! Face up to it, I want you to see it exactly as it is.

And it is not what you claim. You push this onto me, and I don't embrace it.

Of course I'm pushing it. You have to embrace it.

Created does not equal robot.

Yes and no. We are created beings like any robot (organic is beside the point). We had a beginning, as would any robot. We have something special, but whatever it is, it is still a created thing.

Now, yes. But that still doesn't equal robot;

It equates "Broken created thing."

By your declaration?

By it just being a fact. You still haven't faced up to this. Get to the point where you understand you are a created entity despite how robotic that makes you feel. Get to a point where you understand the incredible love of God.

But love is not programming. That's the point. Yes, we were created with the capacity to love. This doesn't mean that we respond as programmed.

How could you respond otherwise? If we are created, our responses are also created. It is a hard truth (and it is true) but once you get past the bludgeoning of it, you'll start seeing things a bit differently (in truth and reality).

I'll ask again in another way: Do you think God is capable of creating a being which is sufficiently free from God's control that its future decisions are unknowable?
Muz

I don't know. Do you? Really? I assert we both do not.

It seems to me (with acknowledged and importantly understood limitations upon my abilities that no-wise rival God's abilities), that whatever He creates He'd know about. My best guess, but it seem to carry stronger support in my mind, after all, as long as we are asserting/speculating.

 

[godrulz]

Sorry if the conversation has moved on from here, but this post caught my eye because it illustrates a statement I made earlier: namely that the further one digs into Open Theism, the more one sees God being recreated in the image of man.

Doesn't it bother you even a little bit to compare God's prescience to man's? Even if you assert that God's goes beyond that of man (and I know that you do) it still paints such a small and finite picture of God that a valid comparison could even be drawn in the first place.

I mean what you're really saying here is that God does pretty much the same things as man...He just does a little better job of it.

If ever there was a perception of God that bears similarity to Greek philosophy (as OVers often claim of settled theists) that's it! That's exactly how the Greeks saw their pantheon -- flawed, limited, but with greater power than man.

Now back to your regularly scheduled debate, already in progress.

God can think and so can man. Oh no, man is a god almost equal to God?! Cmon.

God's greatness and knowledge is vastly superior to man. I was making an observation. There is a vast difference between weathermen and insurance companies or sociologists making accurate predications based on available knowledge and God's knowledge, predictions, prophecies, etc.

You still do not get it that we are not compromising God's omniscience or greatness, but simply debating the nature of reality that God actualized.

If you can see that God cannot create a rock too big to lift (does not limit His omnipotence), then you should be able to see that EDF of future free will contingencies is impossible, even for God, and does not compromise His omniscience.

The issue boils down to determinism vs free will, not whether God is omniscient or not (HE IS in both our views, even if you do not get it yet).

 

[Lon]

If you can see that God cannot create a rock too big to lift (does not limit His omnipotence), then you should be able to see that EDF of future free will contingencies is impossible, even for God, and does not compromise His omniscience.

The issue boils down to determinism vs free will, not whether God is omniscient or not (HE IS in both our views, even if you do not get it yet).

There is the fatal flaw I've been looking for. If Muz would wholeheartedly agree with this as well, I can proceed to dissect it without having to worry about the peripherals. No traditionally minded theologian will buy this because it has been soundly denounced throughout history and for very good reasons.

To be honest, I'm wholly more shy and self-conscious about any divergence in doctrine I carry than the majority because I have the precociousness to go against them. I always precursor my divergence with: "The majority do not agree with this and so I lift it up as a divergence from mainline thought. I think it is substantiated, but I'm always leery about my theology when it goes against those saints' teachings before me. Take it with a grain of salt. I do not have the audacity to say 'I'm right.'" And they are not even major doctrinal differences.

 

[godrulz]

I do believe that EDF of future free will contingencies is a logical contradiction/absurdity. This is why I am certain that I am not compromising God's omniscience or greatness. The way to get around this logic is to propose compatibilistic or Molinistic views. In the end, I believe these loopholes will not stand up to scrutiny.

It is one thing to say this and another to prove it. I will leave that to greater minds who I believe have done so. I can follow their arguments to some degree, but cannot regurgitate them in a post or two.

How about a simple bone instead?

"If an act be free, it must be contingent. If contingent, it may or may not happen, or it may be one of many possibles. And if it may be one of many possibles, it must be uncertain; and if uncertain, it must be unknowable (except as possible/probable, not certain/actual until the potential future becomes the fixed past through the present).

In addition to the free will herring bone, the issue of timelessness vs endless time is also relevant and more consistent with one view or another. I stake my reputation on endless time since 'eternal now' is incoherent and not biblical.

Encore?

A certain event will inevitably come to pass, a necessary event must come to pass, but a contingent event may or may not come to pass. Contingency is an equal possibility of being and of not being. (in light of this, how is EDF compatible with free will? one must give up EDF or water down libertarian free will, the only kind...redundant).

The future choice of holiness or sinfulness (this is proximal, let alone remote knowledge) is, therefore, a thing now wholly undetermined (if it was, we would not be culpable), and hence an unknowable thing. And being an unknowable thing, its prescience involves an absurdity, and hence ignorance thereof necessitates no imperfection in Deity (how can it dishonor Him to know things as they really are?)

Before I am thrown off a cliff:

As omnipotence is limited by the possible, so omniscience is limited by the knowable. We do not limit omnipotence by denying its power to do impossible or self-contradictory things (rock too heavy to lift ring a bell?). Neither do we limit omniscience by denying its power to foreknow unknowable things (like where Yoda is or that I would randomly do this...prescience before I existed? no way, ho zay).fjqwer0gjo3irjgoeqrjg45jh0=4jh=4jhovlda g=jb 45ov qgjv gvjrgb rgbme om dnepneoboeibjertier

(I think the latter is unique to myself and will be my legacy to the OT debate...I have yet to hear how God would know I would mush the keys that way from trillions of years ago if I am free to do so or not).

Read my lips: I AM NOT A SOCK PUPPET. Because of this, God has voluntarily self-limited the scope of possible objects of certain knowledge before contingencies are actualized in real time (present) as the actualization of the potential future becomes the fixed past (then knowable as a certainty, not just a possibility/probabililty).

Over and out....:jawdrop::dizzy::execute:

 

[themuzicman]

Looking at the passage where Peter is concerned:


These are fairly specific concerns when we finally come to the text.

Which is fine. It's not as though there isn't a long history of persecution for those who preach God's word.

There is a lot more going on here than just a rooster. While determinism is certain to play here, most OV discussion I've seen is aimed toward a good guess rather than determinism where Peter's will and choice is steered. Either, in my opinion, is bad for logical considerations. Middle knowledge is saying God knew Peter's choices and is relating them, not making Him do it or making a pretty good guess.

Well, knowing exactly when and where and how Peter's choice would occur is determinism.

And that "pretty good guess" just means that in the various ways in which Peter may choose to at from that moment, he will deny Christ to someone.

Which is a point I made previously:

Had Peter run away from the scene with the rest, and come into a street where another group was passing, and someone asked him if he'd been with Jesus, and he denied it, and this happened three times (before the rooster crowed), would the prophecy have been fulfilled?

OV must pick-and-choose which will be their Avant-garde inconsistently in order to say He guesses at some and determines others to preserve a dedication to LWF in response to any detriment to it. This is a presupposition that steers exegesis and must be acknowledged as such.

Are you saying that God MUST fulfill prophecy through the same means every time?

Middle knowledge, while troubling admittedly, does not cause these extreme problems. How He know and how it relates to any sense of choice we have, we do not know for it is never explained. We just try not to go beyond the texts and believe what we see, with some regards and understanding of the trouble it causes. Middle knowledge does seem indicative in scripture.

It is? I don't recall God saying that He knows all the possible free will decisions of all possible free will agents, even those that were not created. Where is that verse?

I've spent some time on the prior, so if this doesn't suffice and is too simple, we can come back to it.
1 Samuel 15:29
Act 2:31 Romans 8:29

Umm.. NONE of these are anthropomorphized. They ARE all explained through exegesis.

That foreknowledge does not injure choice and culpability.

That's correct. However, foreknowledge DOES require prior determination. That prior determination, then, injures choice and culpability.

I don't know. Do you? Really? I assert we both do not.

Well, I believe in an omnipotent God.

Okay, I'll ask again, was there anything near love between Creator and creature in the Garden prior to the fall?

Yes. From the moment Adam and Eve were given a choice to reject God by disobeying Him, a truly loving relationship existed.

One more time for posterity: was there anything near love between Creator and creature in the Garden prior to the fall?

Yes.

The whole point is that it is a 'created' response. I have no problem with this and defiinitely see it as real genuine love. What could God create otherwise?

So, the loving relationship that exists in the trinity is created?

Or do you mean the capacity to love?

Of course I'm pushing it. You have to embrace it.

No, I don't.

Yes and no. We are created beings like any robot (organic is beside the point). We had a beginning, as would any robot. We have something special, but whatever it is, it is still a created thing.

But created thing != known responses.

It equates "Broken created thing."

With free choice.

By it just being a fact. You still haven't faced up to this. Get to the point where you understand you are a created entity despite how robotic that makes you feel. Get to a point where you understand the incredible love of God.

I do understand it. Apparently better than you do. Love isn't creating billions of people, claiming to love them, but then making a future where most of them are eternally tormented, and they have no choice in the matter.

Love is extending an invitation to a relationship, and seeking a free engagement of that relationship to the point of serving each other.

How could you respond otherwise? If we are created, our responses are also created. It is a hard truth (and it is true) but once you get past the bludgeoning of it, you'll start seeing things a bit differently (in truth and reality).

Except that it is not reality. There is no just judgment in this view, yet God justly judges.

It seems to me (with acknowledged and importantly understood limitations upon my abilities that no-wise rival God's abilities), that whatever He creates He'd know about. My best guess, but it seem to carry stronger support in my mind, after all, as long as we are asserting/speculating.

Well, in my mind, the consequences of your theology do not lead to biblical principles.

Muz

 

[Lon]

I do believe that EDF of future free will contingencies is a logical contradiction/absurdity. This is why I am certain that I am not compromising God's omniscience or greatness. The way to get around this logic is to propose compatibilistic or Molinistic views. In the end, I believe these loopholes will not stand up to scrutiny.

It is one thing to say this and another to prove it. I will leave that to greater minds who I believe have done so. I can follow their arguments to some degree, but cannot regurgitate them in a post or two.

Except it isn't a logical absurdity. Just suppose God knows your actions before you do them. This in no way means you had no choice, it simply means that your choice is known. The problem of logic is a time consideration merely and nothing more. I know every choice I've made in the past (theoretically). This does not mean I had no free choice in the past. To try to speculate as to what foreknowledge would do to your choice is a shot in the dark at best. You and I cannot logically assert anything where we have no ability. That is the only logical and supportable position upon the logic of it. "Before the rooster crows, you will deny me 3 times." This in no way effects Peter's choice. He denies he will do it, and yet, does exactly as foretold. I reject determinism in this as well as an educated guess. Middle knowledge is the more rational. I totally grant that it gives us no mechanism for understanding: This is not my problem.

How about a simple bone instead?

"If an act be free, it must be contingent. If contingent, it may or may not happen, or it may be one of many possibles. And if it may be one of many possibles, it must be uncertain; and if uncertain, it must be unknowable (except as possible/probable, not certain/actual until the potential future becomes the fixed past through the present).

1) Free must be contingent --I don't agree, your definition of free I reject
2) Contingent means indefinite -- To whom? This specifically is where I say, yes, from your and my perspective. No, we have no idea even the mechanism for such to be able to verify. It is without our comprehension.
Thus "it is uncertain" is a one-way street only.
3) Not actual -- It is actual. Possibilities simply point to divergence until the actual is accomplished. Because we are created, our responses (mechanisms for responding) are created. ALL of our mechanisms are created so that simply knowing what is there, what is broken, what is still working will result in an actualization completely known. God already does the 'impossible.' He knows the thoughts and motives of each of the billions of people on earth. Exponentially, it all adds up to trillions and trillions. You limitation is very humanly conceived upon God. I say He is beyond your comprehension (and mine).

In addition to the free will herring bone, the issue of timelessness vs endless time is also relevant and more consistent with one view or another. I stake my reputation on endless time since 'eternal now' is incoherent and not biblical.

Again, this is mathematically incoherent. A ray is understood but a line is only comprehensible as it intersects with a segment. Our logic is absolutely, due to the limitations on being created, constrained to the segment. You cannot measure a line, only a segment or series of segments. Time is a segmented consideration and CANNOT express what is beyond it. God's existence is, in fact, outside of any measure including time. I'm not asserting this, it is provable.

Encore?

A certain event will inevitably come to pass, a necessary event must come to pass, but a contingent event may or may not come to pass. Contingency is an equal possibility of being and of not being. (in light of this, how is EDF compatible with free will? one must give up EDF or water down libertarian free will, the only kind...redundant).

The future choice of holiness or sinfulness (this is proximal, let alone remote knowledge) is, therefore, a thing now wholly undetermined (if it was, we would not be culpable), and hence an unknowable thing. And being an unknowable thing, its prescience involves an absurdity, and hence ignorance thereof necessitates no imperfection in Deity (how can it dishonor Him to know things as they really are?)

Before I am thrown off a cliff:

As omnipotence is limited by the possible, so omniscience is limited by the knowable. We do not limit omnipotence by denying its power to do impossible or self-contradictory things (rock too heavy to lift ring a bell?). Neither do we limit omniscience by denying its power to foreknow unknowable things (like where Yoda is or that I would randomly do this...prescience before I existed? no way, ho zay).fjqwer0gjo3irjgoeqrjg45jh0=4jh=4jhovlda g=jb 45ov qgjv gvjrgb rgbme om dnepneoboeibjertier

(I think the latter is unique to myself and will be my legacy to the OT debate...I have yet to hear how God would know I would mush the keys that way from trillions of years ago if I am free to do so or not).

Read my lips: I AM NOT A SOCK PUPPET. Because of this, God has voluntarily self-limited the scope of possible objects of certain knowledge before contingencies are actualized in real time (present) as the actualization of the potential future becomes the fixed past (then knowable as a certainty, not just a possibility/probabililty).

Over and out....:jawdrop::dizzy::execute:

Contingency is not an equal or we'd not be able to choose. The fact that we do choose shows that all contingencies are not equal. Sock Puppet? Robot? I'm sorry, there are similarities you must acquiesce and cannot logically argue against or ignore. You can, just not logically. We are created beings, like the robot or sock puppet. Every thing we are, our emotions, responses, actions, are all created elements. They all have manufacturing dates. Nothing in us exists that wasn't created. We have no response at all that wasn't put there.

 

[godrulz]

Huh? Are our choices free or not? We are not in a Matrix. Our will is the seat of choice, not something created put there (or whatever you are saying).

I believe my paragraphs are self-evident. I imagine you are putting them through a compatibilistic assumption where God gives causative desires, but we are somehow still not responsible.

If there is one thing I know (two), Molinism and compatibilism simply do not wash.:bang: Thx for playing anyway.

 

[Lon]

Well, knowing exactly when and where and how Peter's choice would occur is determinism.

Yes and no. It is determinism based on the person Peter. He chooses, he determines. He determined that he would deny rather than suffer with his Savior. He made those choices. Foreknowledge does not mean Peter had no choice, it simply means those choices were known. Yes I see your objection. No, I don't believe that an educated guess, that contingencies are all equal, nor that God had to make Peter do this. Because I reject those, Middleknowlege is the only position I logically come to, but again, I know it is a philosophical position being labeled. I do think this is the biblical derision from the text.

And that "pretty good guess" just means that in the various ways in which Peter may choose to at from that moment, he will deny Christ to someone.

Which is a point I made previously:

Had Peter run away from the scene with the rest, and come into a street where another group was passing, and someone asked him if he'd been with Jesus, and he denied it, and this happened three times (before the rooster crowed), would the prophecy have been fulfilled?

Yes. Did it happen that way? --Speculation Do you really want to build doctrines this important on the speculative?

Are you saying that God MUST fulfill prophecy through the same means every time?

I cannot help but think you are replying with hastiness. I'm saying that we must have a consistency to our exegesis. Mine is consistent: God knows all choices before they are made so that you don't have to wrestle over whether it was an invasive plan or a guess. He knows then He determines how it will proceed according to His Decretive and Prescriptive will for the purposes He desires. Didn't you know this before asking?

It is? I don't recall God saying that He knows all the possible free will decisions of all possible free will agents, even those that were not created. Where is that verse?

You understand the difference between the terms: indicative and pedantic, yes?

Umm.. NONE of these are anthropomorphized. They ARE all explained through exegesis.

Totally disagree.

That's correct. However, foreknowledge DOES require prior determination. That prior determination, then, injures choice and culpability.

You are asserting. I've said "I have no idea what mechanism." You are asserting that it must be determinism. I do not believe it altogether untrue, but it is certainly not the only thing going on with foreknowledge, nor does it discount our own determinisms (which are created).

Well, I believe in an omnipotent God.

It does not answer the question. I have no idea if God can make a rock He cannot pick up. The answer is: it is a poor question built on prior misconception. To this isn't a poor-question answer: Can God make a being that He couldn't know their future decisions is a question that I just don't know how to answer. He is all-knowing so I cannot think that anything He created with all the mechanisms He puts into the thing, that it'd surprise Him in any way. I totally agree we are incredible created-organic-machines with all kinds of special responses including a capacity to love and be loved. I cannot get to a point where it would make sense that the dynamics would exceed the created specifications to an all-knowing God.

Yes. From the moment Adam and Eve were given a choice to reject God by disobeying Him, a truly loving relationship existed.
Yes.

One has a qualifier (is really a 'no' not before). The other has none. Can you be a little clearer?

So, the loving relationship that exists in the trinity is created?
Or do you mean the capacity to love?

You inadvertently equated here, didn't you?
One of these contexts is created, the other is not.

No, I don't.

Yes you do. You cannot deny we are created and our responses are created. It just isn't possible from what I know of your logical ability.

But created thing != known responses.

Well, there ya go then. Listen to what your brain is telling you.

With free choice.

Autonomous? Free from Him? Are you asserting that we were created to sin? This is fodder for a very good philosophical discussion that could run pages. I'm not serious with the last question, I'm just saying it opens up a huge deliberation and series of suppositional examinations.

I do understand it. Apparently better than you do. Love isn't creating billions of people, claiming to love them, but then making a future where most of them are eternally tormented, and they have no choice in the matter.

Choice is subjective between our understandings. As with the last question above, we have to understand what is different about us. We are created beings. Everything about us has a manufacture stamp. There is no getting around this truth BUT and perhaps I'm throwing OV a bone: "God breathed." This is totally unique over all creation. I see this specifically as the thing that separates. We have something "God Breathed" into us. Maybe, and here speculation needs to be seen as such, God imparted a part of Himself into us so that in some way we do not understand we are like gods (Like God-created in His image). In this 'image' of Him, we'd have some certain kinds of power like being able to make choices outside of being created because a portion of who we are would be uncreated, the very essence of Him. But because it is Him, I still see Him knowing Himself so knowing us intimately.
-just some philosophical rambling here, I've not worked out the ideas in scripture enough to separate good from whack yet.

Love is extending an invitation to a relationship, and seeking a free engagement of that relationship to the point of serving each other.

Again, I see us as created beings, even with Imago Deo. Our love is a created response. The date it was placed there in us is known.

Except that it is not reality. There is no just judgment in this view, yet God justly judges.

No, again, what is true is true is true. Whatever we do is the result of being created. Judgement comes because we broke that which was created perfect. The culpability remains. I do think I have some good thoughts about the Imago Deo of us concerning our 'freedom' and choices but anything other than what God would do is no longer imago deo and we are broken. We are culpable because we do have something but it does not support the idea that God cannot know what we will do. Being a part of Him would guarantee that He does.

Well, in my mind, the consequences of your theology do not lead to biblical principles.
Muz

I know that, I'm working on it. I want them to point you to Scripture.

Blessings,

Lon

 

[Lon]

Huh? Are our choices free or not? We are not in a Matrix. Our will is the seat of choice, not something created put there (or whatever you are saying).

I believe my paragraphs are self-evident. I imagine you are putting them through a compatibilistic assumption where God gives causative desires, but we are somehow still not responsible.

If there is one thing I know (two), Molinism and compatibilism simply do not wash.:bang: Thx for playing anyway.

My problem here: We are not infinite. We are created beings and being created, everything we are is created. The breath of God is a uniqueness in our creation and points toward what you say, but we do have to be careful in our assessments of what that is. I spent some time speculating with Muz philosophically, but we have to be careful to assess Imago Deo exactly right. It is a special something from God. I believe choice and culpability come from this exact quality about us. Everything else about us is created. I don't know about God's breath. It seems an impartation to me. A piece of Him. In that we are like Him, but as I said, who can better know Himself than God? Whatever this 'free-will contingency" is, it is His nature so that He would even more intimately know what it chooses over even us. The rest is a simple matter of acquiescence. What we do is created so that the parameters of expression are completely knowable. The imago deo is known because it is His very breath.

 

[themuzicman]

Yes and no. It is determinism based on the person Peter. He chooses, he determines. He determined that he would deny rather than suffer with his Savior.

OK, you are not going to go around redefining terms. "Determinism" means that the whole course of history has already been determined, long before Peter chose. Long before Adam and Eve chose. In determinism, we really are all robots.

He made those choices. Foreknowledge does not mean Peter had no choice, it simply means those choices were known. Yes I see your objection. No, I don't believe that an educated guess, that contingencies are all equal, nor that God had to make Peter do this. Because I reject those, Middleknowlege is the only position I logically come to, but again, I know it is a philosophical position being labeled. I do think this is the biblical derision from the text.

Middle knowledge requires determinism. Middle knowledge must deny free will. Understand that the only "contingent" in Molinism is God's choice about which world to actualize. The fact that our "choices" could have been otherwise are not a result of our choice, but of God's.

Yes. Did it happen that way? --Speculation Do you really want to build doctrines this important on the speculative?

I'm not building a doctrine. You've asked how I explain this. You've presented this as a problem for OVT. If you go back to my original post on the foundations of OVT as I see them, you won't see any reference to this verse. All I need do here is explain how this fits. I've done so.

Just FYI, your explanation is speculation as well. Maybe you should ask yourself this question before you ask it to me.

I cannot help but think you are replying with hastiness. I'm saying that we must have a consistency to our exegesis. Mine is consistent: God knows all choices before they are made so that you don't have to wrestle over whether it was an invasive plan or a guess. He knows then He determines how it will proceed according to His Decretive and Prescriptive will for the purposes He desires. Didn't you know this before asking?

Yes, I know this. And I agree that your view is consistent. It's also, IMHO, unbiblical.

And my view is consistent, as well. My view states that God prophesies and fulfills prophecy in whatever way He chooses to do so. Why do you put God in a box, and say that all His prophecy must be done as you see it?

You understand the difference between the terms: indicative and pedantic, yes?

I do. You've made a claim that middle knowledge and Molinism is Scriptural. Let's see it.

Totally disagree.

Then show me where I've anthropomorphized these verses.

You are asserting. I've said "I have no idea what mechanism." You are asserting that it must be determinism. I do not believe it altogether untrue, but it is certainly not the only thing going on with foreknowledge, nor does it discount our own determinisms (which are created).

I don't know what mechanism, either. It doesn't matter. In the end, foreknowledge requires prior determinism. Whether the whole of the timeline already exists and we're just moving through the pictures, or we're all created with programming that makes our decisions for us, or whatever mechanism makes our choices before we are created, they are made before we are created.

It does not answer the question. I have no idea if God can make a rock He cannot pick up. The answer is: it is a poor question built on prior misconception. To this isn't a poor-question answer: Can God make a being that He couldn't know their future decisions is a question that I just don't know how to answer. He is all-knowing so I cannot think that anything He created with all the mechanisms He puts into the thing, that it'd surprise Him in any way.

Who said anything about surprise?

I totally agree we are incredible created-organic-machines with all kinds of special responses including a capacity to love and be loved. I cannot get to a point where it would make sense that the dynamics would exceed the created specifications to an all-knowing God.

Then how do you explain God's demand that we stand justified before Him in order to receive eternal life? You see, OVT isn't just about love. It's about resolving the tension between love and justice.

IF we are machines programmed to love, then we cannot be held culpable for our sins, since they are the result of God's programming.

And that's one of the core problems you have. You cannot hold both love and justice in the same doctrine.

One has a qualifier (is really a 'no' not before). The other has none. Can you be a little clearer?

Read your bible. Adam created, and then Adam is commanded him not to eat of the tree. Obviously Adam was created both with the capacity to love, and the free will to choose to love, and then was given the command to submit to God's will regarding the TKGE.

There is no "before."

You inadvertently equated here, didn't you?
One of these contexts is created, the other is not.

Not at all. God desires the same kind of love between Himself and man as He has within the trinity. Love is not created. The bible doesn't differentiate between God's love and how we love God. If anything, 1 John 4:7-8 makes this equation for us.

Yes you do. You cannot deny we are created and our responses are created. It just isn't possible from what I know of your logical ability.

But you are equating our capacity to love with love itself. You talk about love as though it were some mystical thing that we can't really grasp, but just kinda happens to us.

Love is nothing more than a commitment to meet the needs and desires of another. A loving relationship is when two people make this commitment for each other. If we are robots, we cannot make any commitments, because they have already been made for us.

Well, there ya go then. Listen to what your brain is telling you.

My brain is telling me that:

1) We are created beings with free will and free choice

and

2) Love requires free will and free choice.

Autonomous? Free from Him?

From God's determinism, yes.

Are you asserting that we were created to sin?

No, we were created to NOT sin. We were created to freely choose to engage in a loving relationship with God, where we give Him glory and honor and praise, and He bestows upon us a perfect creation.

This is fodder for a very good philosophical discussion that could run pages. I'm not serious with the last question, I'm just saying it opens up a huge deliberation and series of suppositional examinations.

There's a huge difference between being created to sin and being created with the possibility of sinning.

Choice is subjective between our understandings. As with the last question above, we have to understand what is different about us. We are created beings. Everything about us has a manufacture stamp. There is no getting around this truth BUT and perhaps I'm throwing OV a bone: "God breathed." This is totally unique over all creation. I see this specifically as the thing that separates. We have something "God Breathed" into us. Maybe, and here speculation needs to be seen as such, God imparted a part of Himself into us so that in some way we do not understand we are like gods (Like God-created in His image). In this 'image' of Him, we'd have some certain kinds of power like being able to make choices outside of being created because a portion of who we are would be uncreated, the very essence of Him. But because it is Him, I still see Him knowing Himself so knowing us intimately.
-just some philosophical rambling here, I've not worked out the ideas in scripture enough to separate good from whack yet.

There's another very specific difference, here. Only man is created in God's image. Given that this is surrounded by God commanding man to subdue the earth and take dominion over it (before and after), there is a clear implication that man has freedom to do so as he wishes. This requires free will.

Again, I see us as created beings, even with Imago Deo. Our love is a created response. The date it was placed there in us is known.

And that response is free will. A choice.

No, again, what is true is true is true. Whatever we do is the result of being created. Judgement comes because we broke that which was created perfect. The culpability remains. I do think I have some good thoughts about the Imago Deo of us concerning our 'freedom' and choices but anything other than what God would do is no longer imago deo and we are broken. We are culpable because we do have something but it does not support the idea that God cannot know what we will do. Being a part of Him would guarantee that He does.

Again, this is where you cannot hold two of your own doctrines in the same hand.

On the one hand, all our decisions are already determined beforehand, and are certainly known by God. We can do nothing but what has been foreknown. There is no free choice.

On the other hand, we choose to break what God created as perfect, and we're culpable. But this requires that we were able to choose otherwise, aka, free choice.

We have free choice and are culpable, or we don't have free choice, and God foreknows. Which is it? It cannot be both.

I know that, I'm working on it. I want them to point you to Scripture.

They do. They point me to Scriptures that illustrate that your theology isn't consistent with it. Scripture about justice and justification, and God's wrath against people and nations for the choices they make. These tell me that their choices haven't been determined since before creation.

Muz

 

[Lon]

Eph 1:3 Blessed is the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly realms in Christ.
Eph 1:4 For he chose us in Christ before the foundation of the world that we may be holy and unblemished in his sight in love.
Eph 1:5 He did this by predestining us to adoption as his sons through Jesus Christ, according to the pleasure of his will —
Eph 1:6 to the praise of the glory of his grace that he has freely bestowed on us in his dearly loved Son.
Eph 1:7 In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of his grace
Eph 1:8 that he lavished on us in all wisdom and insight.
Eph 1:9 He did this when he revealed to us the secret of his will, according to his good pleasure that he set forth in Christ,
Eph 1:10 toward the administration of the fullness of the times, to head up all things in Christ — the things in heaven and the things on earth.
Eph 1:11 In Christ we too have been claimed as God's own possession, since we were predestined according to the one purpose of him who accomplishes all things according to the counsel of his will
Eph 1:12 so that we, who were the first to set our hope on Christ, would be to the praise of his glory.
Eph 1:13 And when you heard the word of truth (the gospel of your salvation) — when you believed in Christ — you were marked with the seal of the promised Holy Spirit,
Eph 1:14 who is the down payment of our inheritance, until the redemption of God's own possession, to the praise of his glory.

OK, you are not going to go around redefining terms. "Determinism" means that the whole course of history has already been determined, long before Peter chose. Long before Adam and Eve chose. In determinism, we really are all robots.

Again, the mechanism of foreknowlege does not require it. Foreordination requires it but this is understood as both decretive and prescriptive.

Middle knowledge requires determinism. Middle knowledge must deny free will. Understand that the only "contingent" in Molinism is God's choice about which world to actualize. The fact that our "choices" could have been otherwise are not a result of our choice, but of God's.

Middle knowledge, again you confuse the meaning of the term.

I'm not building a doctrine. You've asked how I explain this. You've presented this as a problem for OVT. If you go back to my original post on the foundations of OVT as I see them, you won't see any reference to this verse. All I need do here is explain how this fits. I've done so.

Just FYI, your explanation is speculation as well. Maybe you should ask yourself this question before you ask it to me.

Nope. All I have to do is discredit your speculation that builds such an off-shoot of accepted theism. I am NOT the one who is trying to convince all of Christianity to 'follow me.' After this, we can look at my suppositions. The burden of proof lies with the divergent. It always has and for all the right reasons.

Yes, I know this. And I agree that your view is consistent. It's also, IMHO, unbiblical.

With what foundations? Last I checked, I'm still in the Mensa club. --> can't be based on intelligence. Last I checked, I was still reading my Bible. --> Your position still rubs me the wrong way as one who is immersed. Last I checked, I wasn't so emotionally attached to doctrine as to Him. --> He isn't leading me away from my doctrines and beliefs. Last I checked, the whole of Christianity both past and present, have withstood these doctrines as heresy. --> Seems like a better argument might need to be presented.

If you are holding back at all for any of this, now would be a good time. If the point of departure was brilliantly clear and true, I'd be first in line to ram this doctrine through. My objections stand and the cast of unbiblical is not seen against the traditional view at this venture.

And my view is consistent, as well. My view states that God prophesies and fulfills prophecy in whatever way He chooses to do so. Why do you put God in a box, and say that all His prophecy must be done as you see it?

Because I see it as premised upon your box and it definitely looks smaller than mine.

I do. You've made a claim that middle knowledge and Molinism is Scriptural. Let's see it.

Did you even bother to look back at the context of our discussion? I said "indicative." Perhaps it doesn't mean the same thing between us.

"You will deny me."

1Ki 13:2 With the authority of the LORD4 he cried out against the altar, "O altar, altar! This is what the LORD says, 'Look, a son named Josiah will be born to the Davidic dynasty. He will sacrifice on you the priests of the high places who offer sacrifices on you. Human bones will be burned on you.' "5
1Ki 13:3 That day he also announced6 a sign, "This is the sign the LORD has predetermined:7 The altar will be split open and the ashes8 on it will fall to the ground."

Psa 139:14 You knew me thoroughly;
my bones were not hidden from you,
when I was made in secret
and sewed together in the depths of the earth.
Psa 139:16 Your eyes saw me when I was inside the womb.
All the days ordained for me
were recorded in your scroll
before one of them came into existence.

Huh, seems pretty indicative to me if not pedantic. I was being somewhat generous with the OV. I believe my position to be pedantic.

Then show me where I've anthropomorphized these verses.

Good, so you agree that the rest of the 1Samuel text where it says He relented is anthropomorphed. Welcome back to rightly dividing truth and doctrine.

I don't know what mechanism, either. It doesn't matter. In the end, foreknowledge requires prior determinism. Whether the whole of the timeline already exists and we're just moving through the pictures, or we're all created with programming that makes our decisions for us, or whatever mechanism makes our choices before we are created, they are made before we are created.

You are saying this like it'd be a bad thing? I have no problem asserting and reasserting that I'm a created being. All of my actions are the result of being created. How something went wrong is a story about a serpent where man listened to the wrong god and the vile snake had a hammer behind his back.

Who said anything about surprise?

Isaiah 5:3-4 What was your take on it?

Then how do you explain God's demand that we stand justified before Him in order to receive eternal life? You see, OVT isn't just about love. It's about resolving the tension between love and justice.

What did they teach you in that seminary? Didn't you see this same topic discussed? OV is hardly revolutionary in trying to bring these two terms to meaning.

IF we are machines programmed to love, then we cannot be held culpable for our sins, since they are the result of God's programming.

Isn't that odd, we are 'machines' in that we are created and have a start up-date. Even whatever is held cupable has a start-up date. So, what do we have that isn't created?

And that's one of the core problems you have. You cannot hold both love and justice in the same doctrine.

Why not? My daughter is a created being. I love her and seek justice with the same psychology. Foreknowledge nor Middle knowledge affect our culpability. Again, foreordination does, but there is a difference between decretive and prescriptive. God allows with a goal, and He decrees with a goal. He has His hand in our lives so that He makes things happen to change our course, but in others, He doesn't have to: the outcome is already forseen so that it brings about what He wishes. We are held accountable under the allowance and specifically for our being. Not so much what we decided as to who we were and are when it was and is done. You can do an action for the right reason and motivation and could do the exact same action and get it all wrong.

Read your bible. Adam created, and then Adam is commanded him not to eat of the tree. Obviously Adam was created both with the capacity to love, and the free will to choose to love, and then was given the command to submit to God's will regarding the TKGE.

Dude, I'm the one reading my Bible and quoting here. You seem to be doing this all from memory.

There is no "before."

Let me try again. Did Adam and Eve love God before the tree was forbidden? Did they love God before they sinned?

Not at all. God desires the same kind of love between Himself and man as He has within the trinity. Love is not created. The bible doesn't differentiate between God's love and how we love God. If anything, 1 John 4:7-8 makes this equation for us.

So your love is never created or recreated? As a 'created' being, your love has always existed? I'm not following your line of reasoning here at all.

But you are equating our capacity to love with love itself. You talk about love as though it were some mystical thing that we can't really grasp, but just kinda happens to us.

Now you've really confused me. I said everything about us is created, that would include love as far as I can tell.

Love is nothing more than a commitment to meet the needs and desires of another. A loving relationship is when two people make this commitment for each other. If we are robots, we cannot make any commitments, because they have already been made for us.

I think it is a good overall, not that I believe we are capable of encapsulating a definition of love, however, the second point is that we are created beings and I see no opposition to such a thing being the output of being created. You do not have to autonomously choose to love. We were created with love as the prima modus Operant (Love was the only thing we could do, there was no 'not-love'). Hence, there is no need for your 'choice' scenario to understand this.

My brain is telling me that:

1) We are created beings with free will and free choice

and

2) Love requires free will and free choice.

Think this through some more. There is no need for 'choice' for love to exist.

From God's determinism, yes.

Oops, bad call and worse theology. That's a blanket statement, but so was your answer. These one-liners are going to get you into trouble.

No, we were created to NOT sin. We were created to freely choose to engage in a loving relationship with God, where we give Him glory and honor and praise, and He bestows upon us a perfect creation.

I disagree. We were created to love and NOT freely choose sin. I see Free-choice as you claim: Alternative choice, choice to sin. I believe we had no other response but to love and it was free-choice autonomy that created free-will sin.

There's a huge difference between being created to sin and being created with the possibility of sinning.

Of course, but somewhere there has to be something to reject as addition to a preFallen creation. There is a drive for me as a believer to NOT just choose because I can, but to choose what He desires. The rest is dross and is gonna burn. The 'no-choice' scenario is one you run from and I run to embrace.

There's another very specific difference, here. Only man is created in God's image. Given that this is surrounded by God commanding man to subdue the earth and take dominion over it (before and after), there is a clear implication that man has freedom to do so as he wishes. This requires free will.

How did this just not contradict your last quote? I see it more as we had a variety of freedom but the motivation was always love. I see the Fall as a creation of something else entirely in us that I reject as bad news.

And that response is free will. A choice.

No, I don't believe we were ever created to be autonomous. We were created to be connected. Severance is what dooms us. Our autonomy is spoken against in John 15.

Again, this is where you cannot hold two of your own doctrines in the same hand.

On the one hand, all our decisions are already determined beforehand, and are certainly known by God. We can do nothing but what has been foreknown. There is no free choice.

On the other hand, we choose to break what God created as perfect, and we're culpable. But this requires that we were able to choose otherwise, aka, free choice.

We have free choice and are culpable, or we don't have free choice, and God foreknows. Which is it? It cannot be both.

I guess nothing I've said has made any sense to you. That being the case, no wonder OV is all that you had left. Your days in college were wasted for answering this for you. I'm sorry. You have nothing left but OV because that is all that will ever make sense to you. If this isn't true, perhaps you could walk through my view as we understand it then, if you perceive it correctly, dismantle what you believe to be the problem. Right now, I'm not sure anything I've said has planted anything of reason in your mind for why I hold it.

They do. They point me to Scriptures that illustrate that your theology isn't consistent with it. Scripture about justice and justification, and God's wrath against people and nations for the choices they make. These tell me that their choices haven't been determined since before creation.
Muz

When I make a future choice 1) it can be predetermined without it affecting my culpability. It can be determined by my own determinations and the way I'm made. It can be determined by my heart and past actions. It can be determined by another's involvement with my choice. None of these remove my culpability and I still choose the desired action regardless of who knows or what they have decided or predecided to do about it.
2) Foreknowledge does not determine my action. The question: Can I have done otherwise is about the same as asking if I could go back in time and change something yesterday. The logic of time is a loophole and should not be considered for this. If being unable to change my past does nothing to my culpability, doing anything in my future doesn't either.

 

[themuzicman]

Again, the mechanism of foreknowlege does not require it. Foreordination requires it but this is understood as both decretive and prescriptive.

No, the content of foreknowledge requires prior determination.

Middle knowledge, again you confuse the meaning of the term.

Middle knowledge states that God knows whatever any potential agent would do in any given circumstance. This means that either this agent is programmed to do this, or that decision is already made.

Nope. All I have to do is discredit your speculation that builds such an off-shoot of accepted theism. I am NOT the one who is trying to convince all of Christianity to 'follow me.' After this, we can look at my suppositions. The burden of proof lies with the divergent. It always has and for all the right reasons.

IT demonstrates nothing, since I dont' build doctrine off of the Peter story.

With what foundations? Last I checked, I'm still in the Mensa club. --> can't be based on intelligence. Last I checked, I was still reading my Bible. --> Your position still rubs me the wrong way as one who is immersed. Last I checked, I wasn't so emotionally attached to doctrine as to Him. --> He isn't leading me away from my doctrines and beliefs. Last I checked, the whole of Christianity both past and present, have withstood these doctrines as heresy. --> Seems like a better argument might need to be presented.

So, doctrine is about your feelings? If you go back to my post about foundations, there are no emotional insertions, and there is Scriptural foundation.

To be honest, I think you're the one who is worried about being dragged away by Scripture.

If you are holding back at all for any of this, now would be a good time. If the point of departure was brilliantly clear and true, I'd be first in line to ram this doctrine through. My objections stand and the cast of unbiblical is not seen against the traditional view at this venture.

1) Your assertion that God prophesies through EDF is as much conjecture as my assertion that God prophesies and fulfills prophecy through a variety of means.

2) Your fear that "God might not be able to fulfill his prophecy" only belies your lack of faith in God and His wisdom and omnipotence.

3) There is no settled view in the church with regard to God's foreknowledge and creation. Catholics have their view, EO have their view, Calvinists have their view, Molinists have their view, Arminians have their view, OVT has its view. Just from the idea that your Calvinist view somehow represents the "traditional" view is hilarious. Don't you realize that you're in the minority worldwide, and that the "traditional" view disagrees with you?

Because I see it as premised upon your box and it definitely looks smaller than mine.

LOL... You ram everything through one method. I allow for God to act as He wills. Who's putting God in a box?

Did you even bother to look back at the context of our discussion? I said "indicative." Perhaps it doesn't mean the same thing between us.

Indicative. Making or pointing to a statement of fact. So, show us where Scripture says or points to God having middle knowledge.

"You will deny me."
Huh, seems pretty indicative to me if not pedantic. I was being somewhat generous with the OV. I believe my position to be pedantic.

It's also presupposed. Your view is not the only way that these things are true. In fact, your view, if held by the writer and hearers, makes Scripture into a "duh!" moment. Psalms are poetry. They're intended to express feelings and worship. The Psalmist isn't making a doctrinal statement about EDF. He's saying that because he believes in God, that God is preparing his way, ordaining his steps. Ordination, here, isn't an absolute path that must be walked, but a direction God desires the individual to go, which He prepares.

Good, so you agree that the rest of the 1Samuel text where it says He relented is anthropomorphed. Welcome back to rightly dividing truth and doctrine.

I said to show me where I've done this. I've done nothing of the sort.

You are saying this like it'd be a bad thing? I have no problem asserting and reasserting that I'm a created being. All of my actions are the result of being created. How something went wrong is a story about a serpent where man listened to the wrong god and the vile snake had a hammer behind his back.

It's bad because you completely lose the doctrine of justification.

Isaiah 5:3-4 What was your take on it?

That God acted in a particular way, expecting Israel to respond in a given way, and Israel did not. God knew it was possible that Israel would not.

What did they teach you in that seminary? Didn't you see this same topic discussed? OV is hardly revolutionary in trying to bring these two terms to meaning.

But it is revolutionary in successfully doing do.

Isn't that odd, we are 'machines' in that we are created and have a start up-date. Even whatever is held cupable has a start-up date. So, what do we have that isn't created?

The problem isn't that we are created. The problem is that you view of something that is created is that it is a machine that must follow laws which determine our every action and decision.

Once you embrace this, you cannot reconcile with the doctrine of justification.

Why not? My daughter is a created being. I love her and seek justice with the same psychology. Foreknowledge nor Middle knowledge affect our culpability. Again, foreordination does, but there is a difference between decretive and prescriptive. God allows with a goal, and He decrees with a goal. He has His hand in our lives so that He makes things happen to change our course, but in others, He doesn't have to: the outcome is already forseen so that it brings about what He wishes. We are held accountable under the allowance and specifically for our being. Not so much what we decided as to who we were and are when it was and is done. You can do an action for the right reason and motivation and could do the exact same action and get it all wrong.

The problem is that you cannot have foreknowledge of future decisions without someone predestining every one of them.

Dude, I'm the one reading my Bible and quoting here. You seem to be doing this all from memory.

You have your bible open, and yet you don't actually read it.

Let me try again. Did Adam and Eve love God before the tree was forbidden? Did they love God before they sinned?

Adam was the only one created before they were commanded, and when Adam was created, God commanded him not to eat. If you want to say that, in the few moments between creation and command that Adam couldn't engage in a loving relationship (due to inability to reject God), we can get pedantic and say that. It's fairly meaningless, since this is God's intent, but whatever.

So your love is never created or recreated? As a 'created' being, your love has always existed? I'm not following your line of reasoning here at all.

Does God the Father love God the Son or not? Is this love eternal?

Now you've really confused me. I said everything about us is created, that would include love as far as I can tell.

So, God the Father didn't love God the Son before creation? OR did God the Son and the Holy Spirit not exist before creation?

I think it is a good overall, not that I believe we are capable of encapsulating a definition of love, however, the second point is that we are created beings and I see no opposition to such a thing being the output of being created. You do not have to autonomously choose to love. We were created with love as the prima modus Operant (Love was the only thing we could do, there was no 'not-love'). Hence, there is no need for your 'choice' scenario to understand this.

Which, of course, is just silly. You have to make love some "mystical, non-understandable" creation in order to say this. If we could come out of the philosophical blue for a moment and look at what love really is, your whole point goes away.

As I said, love is nothing more than a desire and a choice to meet the needs and desires of another. A loving relationship is two people who choose to engage in this commitment for each other.

Yes, it's really that simple.

Think this through some more. There is no need for 'choice' for love to exist.

Only in your "love is this created, mystical, non-understandable substance" theory. When we inject reality, it is.

Oops, bad call and worse theology. That's a blanket statement, but so was your answer. These one-liners are going to get you into trouble.

So, you are a determinist. Interesting. In a day when we're getting away from God being the cause of all suffering and evil, you stand up and declare that He is.

I disagree. We were created to love and NOT freely choose sin. I see Free-choice as you claim: Alternative choice, choice to sin. I believe we had no other response but to love and it was free-choice autonomy that created free-will sin.

LOL.. So, sinning was a loving act? (Remember you said that we have no choice but to love God. Thus, anything we do is a loving act towards God.)

Of course, but somewhere there has to be something to reject as addition to a preFallen creation. There is a drive for me as a believer to NOT just choose because I can, but to choose what He desires. The rest is dross and is gonna burn. The 'no-choice' scenario is one you run from and I run to embrace.

Nice try at equivocation. But I spot them well.

There is a difference between saying "I cannot chose X" and "I will not choose X", and I don't mean this in the "modal logic" form. Yes, clearly we all are commanded to choose not to sin. But that is still a choice you make.

How did this just not contradict your last quote? I see it more as we had a variety of freedom but the motivation was always love. I see the Fall as a creation of something else entirely in us that I reject as bad news.

LOL... Again, if our every motivation is love, then Adam and Eve sinned acting perfectly in the love of God. They loved God with their decision, and God condemned them to death and hell for it.

That's love for you. :grave:

No, I don't believe we were ever created to be autonomous. We were created to be connected. Severance is what dooms us. Our autonomy is spoken against in John 15.

You're 100% out of phase. Jesus clearly puts the onus on the believer:

IF you abide in me...
IF anyone does not abide in me...

These are clearly choices put upon the individual to choose.

I guess nothing I've said has made any sense to you. That being the case, no wonder OV is all that you had left. Your days in college were wasted for answering this for you. I'm sorry. You have nothing left but OV because that is all that will ever make sense to you. If this isn't true, perhaps you could walk through my view as we understand it then, if you perceive it correctly, dismantle what you believe to be the problem. Right now, I'm not sure anything I've said has planted anything of reason in your mind for why I hold it.

I suspect you hold it because that's what you learned from the person who last taught you. I decided a long time ago to pay attention to what people have taught and teach, but to do so with a critical eye, soas to be like the Bereans and see if Scripture says what teachers claim. I find some truth in Calvinism. I find some truth in Arminianism. But those truths are truths supported in Scripture.

My says in Seminary have been spent being encouraged by professors to read the bible, to understand hermeneutics and exegesis and apply them conservatively and accurately. To give respect to tradition, but not to accept it because it is tradition. I've learned a great deal from being in Seminary. Some of my previous views I've altered because of being there.

But this application has only served to reinforce what I believe about OVT.

When I make a future choice 1) it can be predetermined without it affecting my culpability. It can be determined by my own determinations and the way I'm made. It can be determined by my heart and past actions. It can be determined by another's involvement with my choice. None of these remove my culpability and I still choose the desired action regardless of who knows or what they have decided or predecided to do about it.

This is simply incorrect. First, you haven't made any future choices yet. Second, if your future choices are determined by these factors (your programming combined with environmental inputs), then there cannot be any culpability, any more than there is culpability for a robot that I build to walk into a mall and plant a bomb. In order for there to be true culpability, there must be undetermined, uncoerced choice.

2) Foreknowledge does not determine my action. The question: Can I have done otherwise is about the same as asking if I could go back in time and change something yesterday. The logic of time is a loophole and should not be considered for this. If being unable to change my past does nothing to my culpability, doing anything in my future doesn't either.

Again, you miss the point. I've never said that foreknowledge determines anything. I've said that foreknowledge requires prior determination.

If your decisions are determined prior to your existence, then they were determined by someone other than you. I'm still looking to expand the list of agents that existed before creation that would be capable of doing this.

Muz

 

[Lon]

No, the content of foreknowledge requires prior determination.

Nope. Not. Not as you understand predetermination anyway. I can know about anything that is knowable. What this means and what this means for God are two different things. I cannot know what He knows. That isn't knowable. The problem with your exponential here is that this is all you mean by God being omniscient. When I finally learn all there is to know on this earth, according to your definition. I'll become omniscient as OV defines it. Don't you wonder why the OV was rejected long ago in different disguises? You are siding with the heretics! Just because you are mixing your heresies doesn't fix them.

Middle knowledge states that God knows whatever any potential agent would do in any given circumstance. This means that either this agent is programmed to do this, or that decision is already made.

Exactly, but this isn't what you mean when you use the word Determinism. You are refering to the former, not the latter. This is my answer to the above concern so that it is a 'nope. not.'

IT demonstrates nothing, since I dont' build doctrine off of the Peter story.

That's because your answer to it is exegetically weak.

So, doctrine is about your feelings? If you go back to my post about foundations, there are no emotional insertions, and there is Scriptural foundation.

I disagree, I believe you strongly emotionally attached to your doctrine. I do have emotional attachment to mine, but an SS stance has me loving Him and His Word. If my doctrine has problems, either He or His Word can and will correct.

To be honest, I think you're the one who is worried about being dragged away by Scripture.

Because I see your exegesis as whack? Come on. EVERYBODY ELSE sees your position as whack throughout the ages and now. If I can't get you to see it by posting scripture, I'll try by posting past arguments, rejections, sound theologian presentations etc. etc. etc. Anything to get you 1) to realize you are in a minority that seems precocious and presumptuous to me with audacity to assert a position as if the rest of us are dupes with no intelligence to search a thing, no Spirit to search a thing, no commitment to search a thing. 2) to realize that if you are in the minority with an answer, like in a math class, you should redo your homework!

1) Your assertion that God prophesies through EDF is as much conjecture as my assertion that God prophesies and fulfills prophecy through a variety of means.

No, it works in all situations exactly the same.

2) Your fear that "God might not be able to fulfill his prophecy" only belies your lack of faith in God and His wisdom and omnipotence.

No, it isn't fear, it is that your assertions are rejected. Has nothing whatsoever to do with fear. If I saw a cogent argument I'd examine it. I was MUCH more open to considering OV when I didn't know much about it and spent many long nights reading my Bible. Now that I know where you guys are coming from and what suppositions drive doctrine and exegesis, I'm much more closed after careful study. I believe the OV position is found wanting as it was in past history.

3) There is no settled view in the church with regard to God's foreknowledge and creation. Catholics have their view, EO have their view, Calvinists have their view, Molinists have their view, Arminians have their view, OVT has its view. Just from the idea that your Calvinist view somehow represents the "traditional" view is hilarious. Don't you realize that you're in the minority worldwide, and that the "traditional" view disagrees with you?

Of course, that's why I have studied and did not say I was one until I could defend it. HOWEVER, our views are compatible with one another. OV is against that grain. NONE of us say God doesn't know the future actions of man. That is OV's alone. NONE of us believe God is constrained by a timeline. That is OV's alone. NONE of us believe God changes His mind, that is OV's alone. I could keep going here, easily....

LOL... You ram everything through one method. I allow for God to act as He wills. Who's putting God in a box?

The box is so huge, you couldn't measure it. I'll keep that box.

Indicative. Making or pointing to a statement of fact. So, show us where Scripture says or points to God having middle knowledge.

I did!

It's also presupposed. Your view is not the only way that these things are true. In fact, your view, if held by the writer and hearers, makes Scripture into a "duh!" moment. Psalms are poetry. They're intended to express feelings and worship. The Psalmist isn't making a doctrinal statement about EDF. He's saying that because he believes in God, that God is preparing his way, ordaining his steps. Ordination, here, isn't an absolute path that must be walked, but a direction God desires the individual to go, which He prepares.

Yep, I knew this from your exegesis. We have presuppositions that drive our theology. I believe all the rest of us together, even though we disagree on some things, will pool together to say "nope, bad OV exegesis."

I said to show me where I've done this. I've done nothing of the sort.

There is no question that you are against even Open Theism on points. It does force you to redefine who you are. As you disagree with them here, you are more and more of an Arminian than Open Theist. You need to either agree with them here are admit that you aren't OV.

It's bad because you completely lose the doctrine of justification.

If being created makes you lose justification, that's news to me. The fact remains and I double-dog-dare you to prove me wrong: You are a created being.

That God acted in a particular way, expecting Israel to respond in a given way, and Israel did not. God knew it was possible that Israel would not.

That's a good Arminian answer. Note how it differs from the rest of assertion by OV including Pinnock, Boyd, and Sanders.

But it is revolutionary in successfully doing do.

Asserting.

The problem isn't that we are created. The problem is that you view of something that is created is that it is a machine that must follow laws which determine our every action and decision.

Hello? What thing could you do otherwise other than as a created being?

Once you embrace this, you cannot reconcile with the doctrine of justification.

-Triple-dog-dare

The problem is that you cannot have foreknowledge of future decisions without someone predestining every one of them.

Wrong, that is an assertion upon the mechanism which you yourself said you do not know.

You have your bible open, and yet you don't actually read it.

Meh. I still post way more scriptures than you and turn to them exponentially more than any OV theist has. I proved these statistics once and can easily do so again. It is still true.

Adam was the only one created before they were commanded, and when Adam was created, God commanded him not to eat. If you want to say that, in the few moments between creation and command that Adam couldn't engage in a loving relationship (due to inability to reject God), we can get pedantic and say that. It's fairly meaningless, since this is God's intent, but whatever.

How long were they in the garden? You know? When was this command given? On the very day of creation? You don't know. I say Adam was loving regardless. A choice to do differently does not define love at all.

Does God the Father love God the Son or not? Is this love eternal?

Yes and yes. Now answer my question.

So, God the Father didn't love God the Son before creation? OR did God the Son and the Holy Spirit not exist before creation?

Yes, There was love. Yes they existed before and always. No answer my question: When did 'your' love begin?

Which, of course, is just silly. You have to make love some "mystical, non-understandable" creation in order to say this. If we could come out of the philosophical blue for a moment and look at what love really is, your whole point goes away.

As I said, love is nothing more than a desire and a choice to meet the needs and desires of another. A loving relationship is two people who choose to engage in this commitment for each other.

Yes, it's really that simple.

Then there is no problem with it being a created response then, is there?

Only in your "love is this created, mystical, non-understandable substance" theory. When we inject reality, it is.

You cannot be created to "desire and a choose to meet the needs and desires of another?"

So, you are a determinist. Interesting. In a day when we're getting away from God being the cause of all suffering and evil, you stand up and declare that He is.

Uhmmm: Prescriptive/Decretive

LOL.. So, sinning was a loving act? (Remember you said that we have no choice but to love God. Thus, anything we do is a loving act towards God.)

This is not recognizing my explanation: Satan came in and used us for something we weren't made to do and we were busted, broken, kaput. Love then is busted, broken, kaput.

Nice try at equivocation. But I spot them well.

No idea what you are talking about here.

There is a difference between saying "I cannot chose X" and "I will not choose X", and I don't mean this in the "modal logic" form. Yes, clearly we all are commanded to choose not to sin. But that is still a choice you make.

Still not following.

LOL... Again, if our every motivation is love, then Adam and Eve sinned acting perfectly in the love of God. They loved God with their decision, and God condemned them to death and hell for it.

That's love for you. :grave:

Nope, I already explained this, twice now.


I'll come back to the rest of this later. I've spent an hour and a half and need to get back to work.

 

[themuzicman]

Nope. Not. Not as you understand predetermination anyway. I can know about anything that is knowable. What this means and what this means for God are two different things. I cannot know what He knows. That isn't knowable. The problem with your exponential here is that this is all you mean by God being omniscient. When I finally learn all there is to know on this earth, according to your definition. I'll become omniscient as OV defines it. Don't you wonder why the OV was rejected long ago in different disguises? You are siding with the heretics! Just because you are mixing your heresies doesn't fix them.

Umm.. you'll never know all the possible courses of the future. You'll never know the state of every person's heart. You'll never know exactly what decisions have been made by every person in the world.

There is a HUGE difference between what you can know and what God can know. This is just another straw man.

Exactly, but this isn't what you mean when you use the word Determinism. You are refering to the former, not the latter. This is my answer to the above concern so that it is a 'nope. not.'

Oddly enough, Molinism has no answer for how God knows the future decisions of "free will" agents.

That's because your answer to it is exegetically weak.

Umm.. if I were building a doctrine,this would be a problem. But you've asked me to explain how this is possible. I've done that more than adequately. If you'd stop moving the goalposts, we could get somewhere.

I disagree, I believe you strongly emotionally attached to your doctrine. I do have emotional attachment to mine, but an SS stance has me loving Him and His Word. If my doctrine has problems, either He or His Word can and will correct.

And eventually, He will. If that's all this is about, we can stop talking now, because I'm interested in exegesis and understanding Scripture properly, not assuaging my feelings.

Because I see your exegesis as whack? Come on. EVERYBODY ELSE sees your position as whack throughout the ages and now.

Let's compare this to Calvinism.

Calvinism has the same problem here.

If I can't get you to see it by posting scripture, I'll try by posting past arguments, rejections, sound theologian presentations etc. etc. etc.

Can do the same thing with Calvinism, here.

Anything to get you 1) to realize you are in a minority that seems precocious and presumptuous to me with audacity to assert a position as if the rest of us are dupes with no intelligence to search a thing, no Spirit to search a thing, no commitment to search a thing.

Same thing with Calvinism, here.

2) to realize that if you are in the minority with an answer, like in a math class, you should redo your homework!

Same thing with Calvinism, here.

Hmm.. are you still Calvinist? Because you fail your own test.

No, it works in all situations exactly the same.

Because you say so? Putting God in a box, are we?

No, it isn't fear, it is that your assertions are rejected. Has nothing whatsoever to do with fear. If I saw a cogent argument I'd examine it. I was MUCH more open to considering OV when I didn't know much about it and spent many long nights reading my Bible. Now that I know where you guys are coming from and what suppositions drive doctrine and exegesis, I'm much more closed after careful study. I believe the OV position is found wanting as it was in past history.

That's because you read with Calvinist colored glasses on.

Of course, that's why I have studied and did not say I was one until I could defend it. HOWEVER, our views are compatible with one another. OV is against that grain. NONE of us say God doesn't know the future actions of man. That is OV's alone. NONE of us believe God is constrained by a timeline. That is OV's alone. NONE of us believe God changes His mind, that is OV's alone. I could keep going here, easily....

I don't believe I've said that God is constrained by a time line. In fact, I've stated that there isn't a future time line. I think that's part of the idea of "OPEN THEISM".. the future is OPEN.

However, oddly enough Scripture says that God changes His mind. I think I'm in pretty good company there (See Exodus 32).

God also expects somethings to happen, and they don't. See Jeremiah 3:6-7, Isaiah 5.

So, if it's me and Scripture, I'm good with that.

The box is so huge, you couldn't measure it. I'll keep that box.

You keep God in that box. My God is too big for a box.

I did!

Then I missed it.

Yep, I knew this from your exegesis. We have presuppositions that drive our theology. I believe all the rest of us together, even though we disagree on some things, will pool together to say "nope, bad OV exegesis."

Which is just your presupposition. I've had these discussions many times, and had many people running around in circles.

There is no question that you are against even Open Theism on points. It does force you to redefine who you are. As you disagree with them here, you are more and more of an Arminian than Open Theist. You need to either agree with them here are admit that you aren't OV.

Why must I agree with OVT, here? It's one verse.

If being created makes you lose justification, that's news to me. The fact remains and I double-dog-dare you to prove me wrong: You are a created being.

No, being a robot means you lose justification. You define "being created" as being a robot.

I define "created being" to include free will. Something robots do not have.

That's a good Arminian answer. Note how it differs from the rest of assertion by OV including Pinnock, Boyd, and Sanders.

Actually, it's not a good Arminian answer. A good Arminian answer say that God did know.

Asserting.

Pot. kettle. black.

Hello? What thing could you do otherwise other than as a created being?

As a created being with free will, my future decision are unknowable. That's the difference. You have created being that are 100% predictable.

-Triple-dog-dare

You really need me to exegete Romans 1-3 for you?

Wrong, that is an assertion upon the mechanism which you yourself said you do not know.

It's not my mechanism to demonstrate. The onus is on you to tell us how something is foreknown before it is decided. From there I can tell you how you're wrong.

From what I read, we're all robots, and thus our decisions are determined by our programming, which were all determined before God created. QED.

Meh. I still post way more scriptures than you and turn to them exponentially more than any OV theist has. I proved these statistics once and can easily do so again. It is still true.

LOL..

How long were they in the garden? You know? When was this command given? On the very day of creation? You don't know.

The text of Scripture suggests that it was immediately following Adam's creation.

I say Adam was loving regardless. A choice to do differently does not define love at all.

Assert. Assert. Assert. If you have no option to choose to not love, then you can't make a decision to love.

Yes and yes. Now answer my question.

Then love is not a created thing. Love is something that exists eternally between God, and something God desired to bestow upon His creation, and something He desires to receive from His creation.

We are given the capacity to love, but LOVE is not a created thing.

Yes, There was love. Yes they existed before and always. No answer my question: When did 'your' love begin?

When I chose to love.

Then there is no problem with it being a created response then, is there?

The capacity to love was created in us. Love itself, however is not created.

You cannot be created to "desire and a choose to meet the needs and desires of another?"

No. You can be created with the capacity to do this, however.

Uhmmm: Prescriptive/Decretive

Meaningless in Calvinism. Everything in Decretive by definition.

This is not recognizing my explanation: Satan came in and used us for something we weren't made to do and we were busted, broken, kaput. Love then is busted, broken, kaput.

Then why are Adam and Eve judged when Satan broke them? Where is the culpability for a misused machine that breaks?

No idea what you are talking about here.

Still not following.

You stated that you have motivation to choose to love. That's a complete change of topic from whether Adam and Eve had the capacity or directive from their programming to love.

And, in what you've said, you think that

1) Adam and Eve's programming was to act in love towards God.
2) And in that acting in love towards God, they sinned.
3) So, sin is an act of love towards God.

You see, when you lose free will, things go whacky.

Muz

 

[Lon]

You're 100% out of phase. Jesus clearly puts the onus on the believer:

IF you abide in me...
IF anyone does not abide in me...

These are clearly choices put upon the individual to choose.

Yep, and accordingly, it is the opposite of autonomy. Free-will as you define it, is nothing I want. It is an 'ability to choose differently than my Creator's intentions' and is 1) the definition I use for sin and 2) autonomous filbecarb. We are created to 'remain.' The opposite is death.

I suspect you hold it because that's what you learned from the person who last taught you. I decided a long time ago to pay attention to what people have taught and teach, but to do so with a critical eye, soas to be like the Bereans and see if Scripture says what teachers claim. I find some truth in Calvinism. I find some truth in Arminianism. But those truths are truths supported in Scripture.

My says in Seminary have been spent being encouraged by professors to read the bible, to understand hermeneutics and exegesis and apply them conservatively and accurately. To give respect to tradition, but not to accept it because it is tradition. I've learned a great deal from being in Seminary. Some of my previous views I've altered because of being there.

But this application has only served to reinforce what I believe about OVT.

Groovy, you are your own authority. What busts my chops more is that Sanders, Pinnock, and Boyd are going about their merry way with their rejected doctrines as if going against 10,000 other theologians is a walk in a blissfully unaware park. Again, I question the audacity, credentials, and stability of such men. Can there be a more arrogant thing to do in Christianity? That is, if it wasn't completely provable and completely convincing. As more studied and more careful men than these three continue to address OV theism, there will be a unified stand. It is already happening. One of us is going to get the 'simpleton' award. The doctrines of the OV have been soundly addressed and rejected several times in the past. "Oh those dirty Catholics!" No, those correct Catholics, and Orthodox, and others who have always said these ideas are whack and don't wash.

This is simply incorrect. First, you haven't made any future choices yet. Second, if your future choices are determined by these factors (your programming combined with environmental inputs), then there cannot be any culpability, any more than there is culpability for a robot that I build to walk into a mall and plant a bomb. In order for there to be true culpability, there must be undetermined, uncoerced choice.

I don't buy this argument. It doesn't matter if your best friend is there telling you to steal the candy. You are culpable. Nor does it matter if your parents were all for it, nor that your conscience didn't bother you. Culpable, culpable, culpable.
It doesn't matter if the state says it's okay to have an abortion, your parents are for it, and your partner encourages it.
Culpable, culpable, culpable.

Again, you miss the point. I've never said that foreknowledge determines anything. I've said that foreknowledge requires prior determination.

If your decisions are determined prior to your existence, then they were determined by someone other than you. I'm still looking to expand the list of agents that existed before creation that would be capable of doing this.

Muz

Foreknowledge requires nothing. You have said just as I have "I don't know the mechanism."

 

[Lon]

Umm.. you'll never know all the possible courses of the future. You'll never know the state of every person's heart. You'll never know exactly what decisions have been made by every person in the world.

BINGO! Your definition of omniscience is "only that which is logically knowable." By your definition, I cannot know these things as they are there to be known, so when I know all that 'can' be known, I'll attain to the OV definition of omniscience.

There is a HUGE difference between what you can know and what God can know. This is just another straw man.

Well, of course I agree but NOT according to the OV definition. Glad we both put that heretical doctrine to rest.

There is a HUGE difference between what you can know and what God can know.

Couldn't have said it better.

Oddly enough, Molinism has no answer for how God knows the future decisions of "free will" agents.

So, because OV can bring God down to a comprehensible level, it somehow is better? I don't think so. This is boxiness in all it's wrappings and making a god in our image.

Umm.. if I were building a doctrine,this would be a problem. But you've asked me to explain how this is possible. I've done that more than adequately. If you'd stop moving the goalposts, we could get somewhere.

Moving it? Like from Genesis 22 to Matthew 26:31ff ? The topic is still the same. You said you didn't use Genesis 22 to build against EDF so I moved to another. Unless you put out your pedantic passages, the best I can do is guess (I'm moving to other goalposts because you "don't build your exegesis" off the ones given).

And eventually, He will. If that's all this is about, we can stop talking now, because I'm interested in exegesis and understanding Scripture properly, not assuaging my feelings.

Haven't I been asking for the pedantic passages all along? Cart 'em out.

Let's compare this to Calvinism.
Calvinism has the same problem here.

Really? Tell me specifically which the RC rejects and which the Arminians do. You'll find we are actually much more minute in our differences than with OV where the chasm is over God's character.

Can do the same thing with Calvinism, here.

Again, the difference isn't questioning God's character. These topics were carried out within RC walls. These topics are still carried out within those and protestant walls. Boyd was dismissed from the SBC. OV is a disunifying issue. These others are not. There are Calvinists, Arminians, Charasmatics, and even RCers in the SBC.

Same thing with Calvinism, here.

But I'm not being kicked out for my belief. It isn't over major doctrines as is the OV.

Same thing with Calvinism, here.

I totally agree. I'm an infra/sup so am much closer in these discussions than OV to the rest of orthodoxy.

Hmm.. are you still Calvinist? Because you fail your own test.

Is okay if I do. I don't believe I do, but being labelled an Arminian isn't too bad in my book.

Because you say so? Putting God in a box, are we?

It just does, if it is a box of some sort, I believe it is given in scripture.

That's because you read with Calvinist colored glasses on.

Actually, I wasn't a 5-pointer when I first appeared here. I've become such because of being here.

I don't believe I've said that God is constrained by a time line. In fact, I've stated that there isn't a future time line. I think that's part of the idea of "OPEN THEISM".. the future is OPEN.

Has mathematical logic problems. The application doesn't work.

However, oddly enough Scripture says that God changes His mind. I think I'm in pretty good company there (See Exodus 32).

Good company is still a very small party. You have to negate one truth to embrace the other.

God also expects somethings to happen, and they don't. See Jeremiah 3:6-7, Isaiah 5.

So, He was guessing. As stated before, this isn't a good exegetical position from the text or any text for that matter. It has been rejected upon grammatical, textual, logical, and theological precepts.

So, if it's me and Scripture, I'm good with that.

I still see it as presumptuous. Redirect this to my position for a moment. 1) I have believed the majority view from scriptural support. The guys that gave us our modern English translations were my language and theology professors 2) You and a very few others, some with questionable degrees (to me) the rest ad hoc and coming from ad hoc schools.

You keep God in that box. My God is too big for a box.

My point exactly. I thought the fact that it couldn't be measured was clear enough that a bright guy like you would have picked it up.

Then I missed it.

"...indicative." Perhaps it doesn't mean the same thing between us.

"You will deny me." Mat 26:31
Quote:
1Ki 13:2 With the authority of the LORD4 he cried out against the altar, "O altar, altar! This is what the LORD says, 'Look, a son named Josiah will be born to the Davidic dynasty. He will sacrifice on you the priests of the high places who offer sacrifices on you. Human bones will be burned on you.' "5
1Ki 13:3 That day he also announced6 a sign, "This is the sign the LORD has predetermined:7 The altar will be split open and the ashes8 on it will fall to the ground."
Quote:
Psa 139:14 You knew me thoroughly;
my bones were not hidden from you,
when I was made in secret
and sewed together in the depths of the earth.
Psa 139:16 Your eyes saw me when I was inside the womb.
All the days ordained for me
were recorded in your scroll
before one of them came into existence.
Huh, seems pretty indicative to me if not pedantic. I was being somewhat generous with the OV. I believe my position to be pedantic.

Which is just your presupposition. I've had these discussions many times, and had many people running around in circles.

The problem is, you are about a thousand or so individuals, some with school, most without. You are all asserting that your view is correct. It is a pip on my Theological radar.

Why must I agree with OVT, here? It's one verse.

Because somewhere along the line, the package won't hold together. Your OV is a seive that leaks into an Arminian basin. They will disown you.

No, being a robot means you lose justification. You define "being created" as being a robot.

Somewhat, yes, there are similarities. How is being a created thing not being a created thing?

I define "created being" to include free will. Something robots do not have.

Semantics, isn't a robot a created thing?

Actually, it's not a good Arminian answer. A good Arminian answer say that God did know.

You said God knew.

Pot. kettle. black.

EXCEPT, I didn't assert here, you did. I said the traditional school you went to discussed God's love and sovereignty. You said, OV did it 'successfully.' That's asserting. This standard line of OV quip is non-engaging and in this particular instance: WRONG!

As a created being with free will, my future decision are unknowable. That's the difference. You have created being that are 100% predictable.

Sigh, and your response was so close to 100% predicatable just to me! I could have written this line for you, honest.

You really need me to exegete Romans 1-3 for you?

"Oh, Please, would you?" (I think it'd be the first heavy lifting you've done here for quite a few pages).

It's not my mechanism to demonstrate. The onus is on you to tell us how something is foreknown before it is decided. From there I can tell you how you're wrong.

All I have to do is point to scripture (like the ones I posted, and reposted above) that shows it as true. I don't have to explain 'how' just that God has it.

From what I read, we're all robots, and thus our decisions are determined by our programming, which were all determined before God created. QED.

Again, in a sense, yes. You, as with any other created thing like a robot, were created, have a start-up date, had nothing pre-existent, were wound up-charged-what have you. All your responses are created. All your thought mechanisms are created. Again, what do you have? Is there anything at all you have that was not created?

The text of Scripture suggests that it was immediately following Adam's creation.

Meh.

Assert. Assert. Assert. If you have no option to choose to not love, then you can't make a decision to love.

If you are created to love, you can't do anything BUT love! Good grief!

Then love is not a created thing. Love is something that exists eternally between God, and something God desired to bestow upon His creation, and something He desires to receive from His creation.

What? You are using a pre-existent love? This is completely confusing to me about what you are attempting to say. Whatever we do is the result of being created, even if it is 'plugging into' some pre-existent love-stream or whatever this is. You accuse me of mystery here when I've said all along that love is a created response put in us by a loving God who values love created in His creation. It has a date stamp as far as I'm aware. What can a created being have or do that isn't put there?

We are given the capacity to love, but LOVE is not a created thing.

When I chose to love.

The capacity to love was created in us. Love itself, however is not created.

Possibly my question above will help you explain this further. It is lost as some esoteric definition of love where we all pre-existed in a love-stream of some kind. I dunno. It is easier for me to say that we were 'plugged in' but that love still has a start-up date in created beings despite if the current always existed or not.

No. You can be created with the capacity to do this, however.

God can't created us already dedicated to the good of another? Adam didn't love Eve because he was made that way? You seem pretty definite with what you are trying to express but I'm not seeing how this is all addressing the fact that we are created beings and that everything about us has a start-date.

]Meaningless in Calvinism. Everything in Decretive by definition.

Or prescriptive. You could just have easily said that as well depending which line of reasoning you are arguing for.

Then why are Adam and Eve judged when Satan broke them? Where is the culpability for a misused machine that breaks?

Because they allowed Satan to do it. The fruit was the one thing they weren't allowed to touch. They allowed Satan to gum up the works. Allowing him to confuse them wasn't the sin. It was specifically, allowing him to redirect their directions/programming/parameters that caused sin to enter.

You stated that you have motivation to choose to love. That's a complete change of topic from whether Adam and Eve had the capacity or directive from their programming to love.

It is against a dual nature. Something Adam and Eve did not have. They had no knowledge between good and evil (that's the name of the tree they ate from).

And, in what you've said, you think that

1) Adam and Eve's programming was to act in love towards God.
2) And in acting in love towards God, they sinned.
3) So, sin is an act of love towards God.

You see, when you lose free will, things go whacky.

Muz

No, 2 is incorrect. The act of sinning first, required an element that would usurp love and obedience. With no Satan, there is no Fall. I do not believe Adam and Eve would ever have without this external, already broken-sinning element. The sin transfered at the moment at which Adam and Eve decided against their nature, to partake, not because God put it there, but because Satan put it there. Satan gave them impetous for the choice or it would not have happened. Satan came up with the 'ability to do otherwise.' Therefore 3) doesn't follow 2).

 

[godrulz]

Classical theists and Open Theists can agree that omnipotence means able to do all that is doable/all=powerful (you would say everything is doable, even logical nonsense like creating square circles?), and that omniscience is knowing all that is knowable (you would say that everything, past/present/future, is exhaustively knowable, so it is redundant, but not a false definition for you). For omniscience, we both believe God knows everything, but we differ as to what everything entails (saying that God does not know 2+2=5 does not mean He is not omniscient or saying He does not know what Yoda is eating for supper right now is not a limitation, but an absurdity).

Where is Philetus when you need him? It is a breath of fresh air vs frustration when people get it (lights go on..ah ha eureka). KISS.

 

[Lon]

Classical theists and Open Theists can agree that omnipotence means able to do all that is doable/all=powerful (you would say everything is doable, even logical nonsense like creating square circles?), and that omniscience is knowing all that is knowable (you would say that everything, past/present/future, is exhaustively knowable, so it is redundant, but not a false definition for you). For omniscience, we both believe God knows everything, but we differ as to what everything entails (saying that God does not know 2+2=5 does not mean He is not omniscient or saying He does not know what Yoda is eating for supper right now is not a limitation, but an absurdity).

Where is Philetus when you need him? It is a breath of fresh air vs frustration when people get it (lights go on..ah ha eureka). KISS.

KISS is nowhere a scripturally described or approved method. Rather we have "Study" and "Berean's were more noble" and "Scholars" and "Scribes."
Were the scribes wrong? Absolutely. Jesus was a turning point in history, but nowhere did He tell the disciples to K.I.S.S. He did promise the Spirit would help to discern (I.E. they needed help discerning???).

So when I know all that is 'knowable' I'll be omniscient by OV definitions!!!
When I am able to do everything any man can do sometime in the future (winning the highest jump, weight-class, can weld better than any, bake the best loaf of breat) according to OV, I'll also be omnipotent. I have all eternity to work on it. Before someone comes behind me and breaks the records, I'll have been omnipotent according to the OV definition. Man can do whatever OV redefines God to be

I would RATHER be accused of being silly for believing God can make square-cirlces than drop my standards for the OV definitions (not that I believe it absurd that God can and does know all future actions). At least one preserves God being able to do that which is beyond our "hope or imagnination." Sheesh, you'd think Paul was trying to tell us something!

Yes! Absolutely! I agree!

For omniscience, we both believe God knows everything, but we differ as to what everything entails

Couldn't say it any better. I totally agree our views being totally different and uncompliable, uncompatible, and at odds with one another. When we both say omniscience, we mean two completely different things. I can eventually attain (theoretically) to the OV low-bar. It is within the reach of man. It is a lowbrow definition.

 

[godrulz]

Even secular atheists agree with Christian philosophers that square circles are not possible, even for an omnipotent God. In your world, 2+2=4 and 5 at the same time. Don't make me sic logician Clete on you.

I don't know what you are talking about. Man will never know all that is knowable or do all that is doable (straw man or joke?). God alone is omnipotent and omniscient. OT's definition is workable and encompasses your concerns. The issue is honestly not about omnipotence or omniscience (we agree), but about logic. As long as you insist you know what Yoda is eating right now or that there are square circles and married bachelors in the universe, I can't help you. This is what I mean by KISS. You are making things too complicated and dismissing self-evident truths. Appeal to antimony or mystery does not make incoherence coherent in any possible world.

Some are thankful they are not Publicans or tax collectors. I am thankful I am not a Calvinist.