Clete said:
Jerry,
You simply cannot be paying attention to what Bob has said or the points he has made on this issue.
Clete,I would say that it is you who has not being paying attention.Over and over Bob says that the Lord is able to make prophecies because He has the ability to make them come to pass.That is his main argument against the idea that the Lord has a knowledge of the future.He wrote:
So as with the kinds of biblical examples offered by the Settled view, God prophesying something that He can do or bring about by influence cannot be proof of exhaustive foreknowledge, just as FDR’s committed effort toward the Allied victory does not prove him omniscient of the future.
Even when Bob is speaking about Peter's denials he repeatedly uses this argument,saying:
So God knows the hearts of men (as all sides agree), and He has influence and power to intervene (as all sides agree), and God would especially intervene to fulfill prophecy (as all sides agree)!
And...
Even if all men were utterly impotent to influence others, God is not. The typical person who hung around Caiaphas’ household would be inclined of his own accord to question Peter...
And...
If the Magi could find the Babe in a manager, then whether Peter went to Bethany on the far side of Olivet, or back into the city, God would be able to produce accusers.
So the whole thrust of Bob's argument in regard to prophecies,including Peter's three denials,is the idea that God would intervene to fulfill prophecy.
But since Bob knows that if the Lord intervened to fulfill the Lord Jesus' prediction about the three denials then He would in fact be "tempting" Peter to sin.So he changes God's motive in intervening from to "fulfilling prophecy" to "simple questions of whether Peter knew the Lord.":
Asking Peter to admit He is a follower of Christ is not evil; it is not a temptation to sin; it is an honorable test, which he failed.
Those questions were an opportunity for Peter to grow in his faith.
First of all,according to Bob,the Lord knew that Peter would deny him,and Bob gave these reasons:
But how could Jesus know that Peter would not die for the cause? Well let’s see. Is that a difficult judgment to make?… Jesus wouldn’t need omniscience, just rudimentary discernment
Jesus knew Peter was too weak to give his life, and yet impetuous...
So according to Bob God would know that Peter would deny the Lord if he was placed in circumstances where Peter thought that a truthful answer would put him in jeopardy.
So God would also know that if He produced accusers then Peter would sin by denying that he was a disciple of Jsus Christ,and therefore He would also know that He was tempting Peter to sin.
So no matter what "motives" that Bob places on God for arranging the accusations,the fact is that God would know that by arranging the accusations that He would be tempting Peter to sin.
But if Bob cannot use the idea that God was influencing events in order to be reasonably sure that the prediction about Peter's denial would come true then he cannot possibly explain how the Lord Jesus would be reasonably sure that Peter would deny Him three times.
So Bob wants it both ways.First he uses the idea that the Lord Jesus could make the prediction because He knew that God would make it come to pass.But then he turns around and says that God's actions in producing people to accuse Peter had nothing at all to do with causing the prediction to come true.
His primary point is that Peter could have done otherwise and that if he had done so, that God would have prefered that outcome over the fulfullment of His prophect.
Yes,his position is so weak that in order to cling to that position he must argue that the prophecies of God can fail.
Despite this position Bob said:
When relatively short-term prophecies come to pass, they provide credibility to the prophet. God then uses that credibility to further build His case that men should trust Him.
If Bob is right here,then we can only conclude that failed prophecies can only lead to man not trusting Him.But here is what Bob says about a possible failed prophecy in regard to the three denials of Peter:
Those questions were an opportunity for Peter to grow in his faith.
If the prediction in regard to the three denials were not fulfilled then this could only lead to the fact that Peter would lose some of His faith in what the Lord Jesus said.This sure would not lead to "an opportunity for Peter to grow in his faith".
All these quotes you are using from Bob need to understood in that context. Your presentation of Bob's position is disengenuous at best.
I would say that it is Bob's responses that is disengenuous at best!
First he makes it plain that he thinks that the Lord was arranging things in order to fulfill the prediction in regard to Peter's three denials:
So God knows the hearts of men (as all sides agree), and He has influence and power to intervene (as all sides agree), and God would especially intervene to fulfill prophecy (as all sides agree)!
But then he says that when God intervened it did not have anything at all to do with fulfilling the prediction but instead was just "an opportunity for Peter to grow in his faith".
In His grace,--Jerry
”Dispensationalism Made Easy”
http://gracebeacon.net/studies/shugart-dispensationalism_made_easy.html
