AMR, Knight asked me to reply to this one question of yours, and in December (Lord-willing, after the launch of a new nationwide organization) I'll look at your answers and make a general reply. For now, here's the post I put in the one-on-one:
Thanks for going through all those 50 BR X questions AMR. I'll answer the one question you've asked for now (per Knight's request). On TOL we often discuss God and the future. We Open Thesists argue that God is a living Person, and that He therefore has a will, and therefore has the ability to decide, and that He remains eternally creative, and able to bring truly new things into existence (flowers, songs, books) and that therefore, because God has a will, and is eternally able, free and creative, the future is open because God is able.
Before I answer your question, consider this personhood issue:
To be a person means to possess a will. There is one God in three Persons, and each Person of the Godhead possesses a will. The primary way we can distinguish that God exists in a Trinity of three Persons (as opposed to a unitarian God) is by noticing in Scripture their respective wills, most explicitly portrayed in Gethsemane when God the Son said, “not as I will, but as You will” (Mat. 26:39).
Greek words for will are thelo, boule, boulomai, etc. These words are used of the persons of the Trinity (John 5:30; 6:38, etc.), and basically of all other persons. As I glance very quickly at the New Testament I see these Greek words used: of the Gentiles (1 Pet. 4:3), of Joseph’s will (Mat. 1:19), of a plaintiff’s will (Mat. 5:40), of a debtor (Mat. 5:42), of any man with self interest (Mat. 7:12), of Christ’s enemies (Mat. 12:38), of Herod (Mat. 14:5), of Joseph of Arimathea’s will (Luke 23:51), the majority’s will (Acts 27:12), the evil soldiers’ will (Acts 27:42), the wills of evil men (1 Cor. 4:5), etc., etc., etc.
Personhood requires a will. (Notice, by the way, how central this personhood thing is, and this made in God’s image thing, which must be admitted for a right understanding of most everything.) AMR, I’m taking it from memory that you asked me how it is, if the future is open, that I could trust that God will have the final victory. And here I pick up the dialogue from your post. I answered:
BE: I have faith in God's wisdom, power, and love.
AMR: Do you believe that God acts as a master chess player with wisdom, skill, and resourcefulness to bring about His purposes?
(And then [I haven’t looked up if anything transpired before the next quote]):
BE: ...there is no such thing as overruling someone's will. That is a non sequitur. I'm not saying just that it is not possible, I am saying that it is not rational (it is illogical). Will is the ability to decide.
AMR: I don't want to misunderstand you. Are you saying that you believe that God will always respect the free will of His creatures? Or are you saying that God cannot interfere with a person's free will--that it is an impossibility?
Now fast-forward to the present. I try to not dodge questions, but to be direct and complete when I answer. So I’ll answer your question, as you put it, and then I’ll answer a few variations of your question, as I think you meant it.
I am saying that God created creatures with a will, which is their ability to decide. Thus, when Gabriel loves God, it is not God deciding to love Himself through a zero-sum portal. It is Gabriel, this creature, exercising his will. There IS NO SUCH THING as God exercising Gabriel's will. That is a non sequitur. It is irrational. The very notion flows from a misunderstanding of fundamental personhood. There is no such thing as God exercising AMR's or Bob's wills, that is a non sequitur. (And I'm really glad that God is not the one who exercised my will in the godless ways that I have exercised it.) God created beings in His likeness, with a will (the ability to decide) and therefore, with the ability to love or hate, like Gabriel and Lucifer. God does not love Himself through Me, any more than He hates Himself through Lucifer. These are nonsense ideas.
When you ask if God can “interfere” with a person’s free will, perhaps you were imprecise. Interfere? I’ll answer your question with the word interfere, and then I’ll answer it with overrule, and some variations on overruling. If someone is counting to ten, and I spook them, I’ve interfered. If a Christian is deciding whether to marry an unbeliever, and I quote from Paul’s epistle, I’ve interfered. God can rightly educate, urge, trick, etc., a person and thereby interfere with the exercise of his will, that is, to influence the outcome of the use of his will. That is a natural everyday process. But in the end, it is the man’s will, deciding. But I think you wanted to ask something else, and something that is so irrational, that it is somewhat difficult to put into words. But I’ll try.
If you were to ask, Can God overrule a man’s free will? You might mean, Can He physically compel that man to take an action he otherwise would not take? For example, Can God levitate a gun into a man’s hand, point it at someone, and force the man’s muscles to pull the trigger? Of course. Yes. God has the raw power to pull the man’s tendons. But is that overruling the man’s will? No.
Or, if you were to ask, Can God overrule a man’s free will? You might mean, Can He psychologically manipulate a man to freely do something that he would never otherwise do? For example, Can God deceive a man into shooting someone he would never shoot of his own free will? Of course. Yes. God has the raw power to play such a trivial mind game, and give a person a delusion and make him think he is doing one thing, when he is actually doing another, or give him a delusion to make him think he must do a certain thing, for a very good reason, which reason doesn’t actually exist. In some circumstances, administering drugs can do likewise. But is that overruling or overcoming the man’s will? No.
Or, if you were to ask, Can God overrule a man’s free will? You might mean, Can He compel a man to freely do something that the man would never otherwise do, something the man is fully aware of, but something he would never do of his own independent will? For example, Herod willed to put John the Baptist to death. And although Herod willed (Greek thelo, will) to murder John, he feared the multitude, so he did not do what he willed (Mat. 14:5). A billion times a day God’s influence moves men to do otherwise than they would have done had His Spirit, His law, His Church, etc., not influenced them otherwise. But is that overruling or overcoming a man’s will? No. Did the multitude overrule Herod’s will? No.
Or, if you were to ask, Can God overrule a man’s free will? You might mean, Can He… [ad infinitum]
This is an exercise in nonsense. The best I can infer from your question AMR is that you mean to ask something like this: Can God overrule a man’s free will in such a way that now the man actually wills something by his own free will that his own independent free will does not will. This is gibberish.
Ask Mr. Religion, you don’t realize this, but your question, Can God overrule a man’s free will, is the same as asking, Can God unmake a person? Did God put eternity in a man’s heart? That is, Is man created as necessarily an eternal creature? Or, Can God unmake a person? That is what you are asking.
-Pastor Bob Enyart
Denver Bible Church & KGOV.com
Thanks for going through all those 50 BR X questions AMR. I'll answer the one question you've asked for now (per Knight's request). On TOL we often discuss God and the future. We Open Thesists argue that God is a living Person, and that He therefore has a will, and therefore has the ability to decide, and that He remains eternally creative, and able to bring truly new things into existence (flowers, songs, books) and that therefore, because God has a will, and is eternally able, free and creative, the future is open because God is able.
Before I answer your question, consider this personhood issue:
To be a person means to possess a will. There is one God in three Persons, and each Person of the Godhead possesses a will. The primary way we can distinguish that God exists in a Trinity of three Persons (as opposed to a unitarian God) is by noticing in Scripture their respective wills, most explicitly portrayed in Gethsemane when God the Son said, “not as I will, but as You will” (Mat. 26:39).
Greek words for will are thelo, boule, boulomai, etc. These words are used of the persons of the Trinity (John 5:30; 6:38, etc.), and basically of all other persons. As I glance very quickly at the New Testament I see these Greek words used: of the Gentiles (1 Pet. 4:3), of Joseph’s will (Mat. 1:19), of a plaintiff’s will (Mat. 5:40), of a debtor (Mat. 5:42), of any man with self interest (Mat. 7:12), of Christ’s enemies (Mat. 12:38), of Herod (Mat. 14:5), of Joseph of Arimathea’s will (Luke 23:51), the majority’s will (Acts 27:12), the evil soldiers’ will (Acts 27:42), the wills of evil men (1 Cor. 4:5), etc., etc., etc.
Personhood requires a will. (Notice, by the way, how central this personhood thing is, and this made in God’s image thing, which must be admitted for a right understanding of most everything.) AMR, I’m taking it from memory that you asked me how it is, if the future is open, that I could trust that God will have the final victory. And here I pick up the dialogue from your post. I answered:
BE: I have faith in God's wisdom, power, and love.
AMR: Do you believe that God acts as a master chess player with wisdom, skill, and resourcefulness to bring about His purposes?
(And then [I haven’t looked up if anything transpired before the next quote]):
BE: ...there is no such thing as overruling someone's will. That is a non sequitur. I'm not saying just that it is not possible, I am saying that it is not rational (it is illogical). Will is the ability to decide.
AMR: I don't want to misunderstand you. Are you saying that you believe that God will always respect the free will of His creatures? Or are you saying that God cannot interfere with a person's free will--that it is an impossibility?
Now fast-forward to the present. I try to not dodge questions, but to be direct and complete when I answer. So I’ll answer your question, as you put it, and then I’ll answer a few variations of your question, as I think you meant it.
I am saying that God created creatures with a will, which is their ability to decide. Thus, when Gabriel loves God, it is not God deciding to love Himself through a zero-sum portal. It is Gabriel, this creature, exercising his will. There IS NO SUCH THING as God exercising Gabriel's will. That is a non sequitur. It is irrational. The very notion flows from a misunderstanding of fundamental personhood. There is no such thing as God exercising AMR's or Bob's wills, that is a non sequitur. (And I'm really glad that God is not the one who exercised my will in the godless ways that I have exercised it.) God created beings in His likeness, with a will (the ability to decide) and therefore, with the ability to love or hate, like Gabriel and Lucifer. God does not love Himself through Me, any more than He hates Himself through Lucifer. These are nonsense ideas.
When you ask if God can “interfere” with a person’s free will, perhaps you were imprecise. Interfere? I’ll answer your question with the word interfere, and then I’ll answer it with overrule, and some variations on overruling. If someone is counting to ten, and I spook them, I’ve interfered. If a Christian is deciding whether to marry an unbeliever, and I quote from Paul’s epistle, I’ve interfered. God can rightly educate, urge, trick, etc., a person and thereby interfere with the exercise of his will, that is, to influence the outcome of the use of his will. That is a natural everyday process. But in the end, it is the man’s will, deciding. But I think you wanted to ask something else, and something that is so irrational, that it is somewhat difficult to put into words. But I’ll try.
If you were to ask, Can God overrule a man’s free will? You might mean, Can He physically compel that man to take an action he otherwise would not take? For example, Can God levitate a gun into a man’s hand, point it at someone, and force the man’s muscles to pull the trigger? Of course. Yes. God has the raw power to pull the man’s tendons. But is that overruling the man’s will? No.
Or, if you were to ask, Can God overrule a man’s free will? You might mean, Can He psychologically manipulate a man to freely do something that he would never otherwise do? For example, Can God deceive a man into shooting someone he would never shoot of his own free will? Of course. Yes. God has the raw power to play such a trivial mind game, and give a person a delusion and make him think he is doing one thing, when he is actually doing another, or give him a delusion to make him think he must do a certain thing, for a very good reason, which reason doesn’t actually exist. In some circumstances, administering drugs can do likewise. But is that overruling or overcoming the man’s will? No.
Or, if you were to ask, Can God overrule a man’s free will? You might mean, Can He compel a man to freely do something that the man would never otherwise do, something the man is fully aware of, but something he would never do of his own independent will? For example, Herod willed to put John the Baptist to death. And although Herod willed (Greek thelo, will) to murder John, he feared the multitude, so he did not do what he willed (Mat. 14:5). A billion times a day God’s influence moves men to do otherwise than they would have done had His Spirit, His law, His Church, etc., not influenced them otherwise. But is that overruling or overcoming a man’s will? No. Did the multitude overrule Herod’s will? No.
Or, if you were to ask, Can God overrule a man’s free will? You might mean, Can He… [ad infinitum]
This is an exercise in nonsense. The best I can infer from your question AMR is that you mean to ask something like this: Can God overrule a man’s free will in such a way that now the man actually wills something by his own free will that his own independent free will does not will. This is gibberish.
Ask Mr. Religion, you don’t realize this, but your question, Can God overrule a man’s free will, is the same as asking, Can God unmake a person? Did God put eternity in a man’s heart? That is, Is man created as necessarily an eternal creature? Or, Can God unmake a person? That is what you are asking.
-Pastor Bob Enyart
Denver Bible Church & KGOV.com
