Sovereignty and control are two different things. You mix these up and are not clear in your own mind so I don't see I can even begin to answer you.
You are as condescending to me as I am to you :thumb:
No rather sovereignty means I am Lord over everything. Control means I have my hand in it. God is both sovereign and in control or else He couldn't even be omnicompetent as the Open Theist asserts
I have told you many times before that sovereignty and total control are not the same thing and yet you keep repeating that we are the same on this issue.
:nono: Just the same questions the world is asking both of us. My ONLY contention is buck passing/ scapegoating. That's it. Nothing more than that. If you point the finger at me, I have absolutely no trouble pointing it back atcha. None at all and will easily continue to do so. Don't like it? Remove your accusatory sig. :think:
WE AREN'T. Learn it. Your problem, and that of many Calvinists, is that when the scripture tells us that God is sovereign, this is not good enough for you. The God of the Bible is not good enough for you that you have to go further by asserting that God is in total control of everything.
The God of the Bible, is perfect for me:
Jeremiah 10:23 O Jehovah, I know that the way of man does not belong to man; it is not in man who walks to direct his steps.
Proverbs 20:24 Man's steps are of Jehovah; how can a man then understand his own way?
Jeremiah 29:11 For I know what I have planned for you,'says the LORD. 'I have plans to prosper you, not to harm you. I have plans to give you a future filled with hope.
Proverbs 16:9 The mind of man plans his way, But the LORD directs his steps.
Pro 3:5 Trust in Jehovah with all your heart, and lean not to your own understanding.
Pro 3:6 In all your ways acknowledge Him, and He shall direct your paths.
Proverbs 21:1 The king's heart is in the hand of Jehovah as the rivers of water; He turns it wherever He will.
Psa 33:9 For He spoke, and it was done; He commanded, and it stood.
Psa 33:10 Jehovah brings the counsel of the nations to nothing; He breaks the plots of the people.
Psa 33:11 The counsel of Jehovah stands forever, the thoughts of His heart to all generations.
Psa 33:12 Blessed is the nation whose God is Jehovah; the people He has chosen for His inheritance.
Psa 33:13 Jehovah looks down from Heaven; He beholds all the sons of mankind.
Psa 33:14 From His dwelling place He looks on all the people of the earth.
Psa 33:15 Together He forms their hearts; His understanding is to all their works.
Psa 37:18 Jehovah knows the days of the upright, and their inheritance shall be forever.
Psa 37:23 The steps of a good man are ordered by Jehovah; and He delights in his way.
Psa 37:24 Though he fall, he shall not be cast down; for Jehovah upholds his hand.
Job 14:5 For his days are fixed, the number of his months is with You, and You have set his bounds so that he cannot pass;
Isaiah 46:9 Remember former things from forever; for I am God, and no other is God, even none like Me,
Isaiah 46:10 declaring the end from the beginning, and from the past things which were not done, saying, My purpose shall stand, and I will do all My pleasure;
Isaiah 46:11 calling a bird of prey from the east, the man of my purpose from a far country. Yes, I have spoken, I will also cause it to come; I have formed; yes, I will do it.
Rom 9:19 You will then say to me, Why does He yet find fault? For who has resisted His will? :nono:
Rom 9:20 No, but, O man, who are you who replies against God? Shall the thing formed say to Him who formed it, Why have you made me this way?
Rom 9:21 Does not the potter have power over the clay, from the same lump to make one vessel to honor and another to dishonor?
John 10:27 My sheep hear My voice, and I know them, and they follow Me.
Seems like scripture and seems like He has control :think:
And then, to cover up the fact that you are exaggerating what the Bible says you call this idea of total control sovereignty anyway. And so you distort language itself in order to bolster your false theology.
MANY more scholars who say 'absolutely not' in my camp. I'm not sure if you even are one.
Actually you didn't. I read those scriptures and I didn't see the words 'God is in absolute control'. We can do nothing without food and water. But that doesn't mean that food and water are in control of us.
I've fixed that now, it I didn't before. No more excuses. :nono:
Yes, it is. As I have told you before.
Learn it.
Will you recognise that I, as an open theist, have maintained consistently that God is sovereign and that sovereignty is not defined as absolute control over the world?
Yes or no? Will you recognise it?????
I recognize you don't think so. I also recognize you don't escape the accusations. BTW, I seldom hear the world smart enough about these things to accuse, it is mostly Open Theists who do so. Interesting, that.
I assert control is control. I am not a double-pred: Hilston's sig has a link to the difference between God's prescriptive and decretive will. One is about what He ordains and the other is about what He does by His own actions. Because I believe this, I'm closer to you than some other Calvinists and it is important on that point, but I don't think the 'extent' of control is as big a concern if you believe the above scriptures given. I believe Bob Enyart was wrong and God can, as Romans 9 says, override our free will. He definitely does with Christians because we are daily following Him, but He can do as He likes with His own creation. The only sovereign over creation is God. No creation is sovereign even over himself, especially no believer. God is His sovereign and thus does control. Correcting, changing our paths, etc. are controls. I have controlled my children out of harms way. They had no choice. I impeded their supposed libertarian free will. The scriptures above say God does as well. That means He will control you whenever He darn-well pleases and as a child of His, you better darn-well like it. He is Lord. You are the creature.
Will you recognise that I, as an open theist, have maintained consistently that God is sovereign and that sovereignty is not defined as absolute control over the world?
Yes or no? Will you recognise it?????
God could end your life in two seconds. You are currently, this very second, sustained by His power Colossians 1:17 What 'control' do you think you have other than what was stolen by Adam and received at our birth by God's forebearance? Why are you demanding God not be allowed, especially as a Christian? I pray often "Not my will, but thine" and "change my heart O God, make it ever true."
Yes, I know I'm 'responsible' but I'm seeing a LOT of hang-ups with 'me' due to the Fall. A LOT! I'm supposed to be His creature. He's supposed to be able to call the shots. AND I NEED it so much more, having a nature that goes contrary to His will!
Calvinism and open theism are different in many ways. They are fundamentally different, they are fundamentally opposed. Open theism is not a variation of Calvinism. It is not a variation of Arminianism either. It seems to me that one of your problems is you think open theism is like Arminianism: you have had an experience of open theism in the past that has been focused on only the one idea of foreknowledge. You have yet to understand how radically different it is from both Arminianism and Calvinism and hence why both Arminianism and Calvinism are so radically wrong.
Slight correct: Yes, I agree with you, but not all open theists do. However, my ONLY contention and I'll repeat myself as well, is that you scapegoat 'us' when you aren't quite as radically different as you'd hoped.
The day you (collectively plural as in Ya'all) stand on your own without a Calvinism scapegoat in your sig, is the day I 'might' start to believe you. You want to be separate so bad too! :nono: Not at this present time.
One thing, however, that will help, I think, is this: I am in the SBC. The one where Sanders and Boyd come from (I think I remember that correctly, that Boyd is the other, it might be Pinnock). At any rate, my denomination says we are not that different at present. Once you prove your point, there will be a shake up in the SBC and I think we'll likely split at that point or something. It is already coming to a head rather quickly, but until then, I'm trying to honor my denominational stance, even as I represent it here on TOL. I appreciate a few of you want that clean break, but it is hardly set in stone at the moment.
Will you recognise that I, as an open theist, have maintained consistently that God is sovereign and that sovereignty is not defined as absolute control over the world?
Yes or no? Will you recognise it????? Or will you continue to misrepresent?
Again, I said, and you are incredibly a knee-jerker here, that the amount of control you acquiesce isn't important. YOU are obfuscating. Change that above to 'no control at all' and I can be done. If you believe in any at all, then you get to answer some of your own questions you tried to pass off to Calvinists. Again, my ONLY concern, with you, now and much of the time, is that you, and Open Theist, are scapegoating and buck passing and not dealing with your own mess you 'tried' to pass off. You even do so in your sig. You can't help yourself. You have to define yourself as completely opposed to Calvinism. If you are, you aren't a theist at all anymore. You HAVE to believe the ▲same scriptures▲
What do you as an open theist, with Romans 9? Answer Paul's question: "Does not the Potter have every right to do whatever He wants with created beings?" See, Paul relegates your independence to a non-issue. I believe we have free-will, but that it is stolen, and not at all libertarian. We have no right to it. That is what Romans 9 conveys.
The sovereign Lord is under no obligation to interfere in the affairs of man. James White and many other Calvinists accuse open theists of bringing God down to man's level. Though I can't speak for other open theists, I will say that it is rather you, the Calvinists who do that by constantly implying that God somehow needs to prove that he is good. Do you really believe that the sovereign Lord is interested in banks? If the sovereign Lord were to just make a whisper, the rush of his breath would destroy Earth and heaven in a breath.
Absolutely. Now what? You are not as different from me as you hoped/imagined? That we might have commonalities we 'cannot' pass off on one another? I have no problem with you saying you are different. I agree. I'm saying I'm pointing out things we also have in common and if we don't get to answer them together, we still have to answer the same hard questions. You just answered this one for both of us. Thanks. Good deal. Why would anyone try to pass the buck when you have the answer right there. Why say God is the 'author of attrocity' in Calvinism when I know I've read the same answer (or nearly) from Calvinists as well. Not that hard. We agree. Great!
If more Open Theists would give this answer, not try and characterize us in sigs, and just address issues, we'd have a lot less needed dialogue. A LOT less (I do think He is interested in banks as they relate to His children. A few of them are praying about financial needs).
Will you recognise that I, as an open theist, have maintained consistently that God is sovereign and that sovereignty is not defined as absolute control over the world?
Yes or no? Will you recognise it????? Or will you continue to misrepresent?
Sure, I don't believe them the same either, and said so above, but that was never the real issue. The issue was that Calvinists are accused of all the things associated with control and Open Theism is accused of over-asserting independence and God's deference to his libertarian free-will.
There are truths expressed on the flip side of a coin here, one manward and the other Godward. We are definitely on opposite sides of the coin but both concerned with God's Character
and His love for people. Such has us both looking at the issues involved on the other side of the coin (and having to answer for those too). It used to be basically a Calvin/Arminian concern. Both sides have hypers. OV is hyper on one side and there are double-preds and hypers on the other. It seems too, that some OVer's are more so than others just as in the Calvinist camp. That's like a hyper hyper Open Theist and a hyper hyper Calvinist
At any rate, once you say 'any' control, you are discussing with me why Attrocities happen instead of just shoving them my way. It isn't 'just' my God that has attrocities in His world nor just mine where they are not stopped. That always/ever is the point.
