It is an assertion anyway. The scripture you are asking for is rather not the proper request, from my theological viewpoint. Because time isn't a factor, the past is already as He willed it.
By that criterion, today is as He willed it, too, but then why would Jesus tell the disciples to pray "Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven."
Yep, I do! All analogies break down if you want to make absurd of them. You might as well claim 'clay' is just as inane (Romans 9/Jeremiah 18). Yeah, I have no problem with Legos. One man's plastic is another's clay, no?
Apparently not, since God ascribes willfulness to the clay.
[Jer 18:4 KJV] And the vessel that he made of clay was marred in the hand of the potter: so he made it again another vessel, as seemed good to the potter to make [it].
Autonomy means 'self-governance' and "not free to eat from this tree" isn't an instance persay of self-governance, if you follow.
[Gal 5:22-23 NKJV] 22 But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, 23 gentleness,
self-control. Against such there is no law.
I don't doubt that these attributes were available to Adam and Eve in the Garden.
No doubt we are autonomous to a greater degree, due to sin that separates. No doubt scripture speaks to this condition. I'm not sure if I'm reading autonomy in this verse either. A condition by Another is set, and that isn't autonomy ('self' governance) exactly.
A condition is set that is in the power of the one to meet or not meet. They are not controlled from the outside to make sure they meet or don't meet the condition. That's what self-governance is about. That's what was going on (or not) in the garden.
I think it plays in but i was looking for:
It isn't that I'm doubting you, just trying to see where you are headed and the significance by asking for the verses (discovery mode, not sure where this is going, just trying to grasp the significance and wanting scriptural context for consideration).
And so should you be willing to give verses for those assertions that are speculative, if you use them to say someone else is wrong.
Except it is projecting. You are imposing your ideas upon mine. Above is just one more example. I think we have to put things in our own words to understand another but it should be noted we may not be very good at it. Something in Open Theism greatly appeals to you, and sets off all kinds of scriptural warning flags for me. In order to dialogue, we have to get better at it, hence -TOL communication.
What that means, imo, is that when you have scriptural warning flags go off, you give those scriptures and we can talk about them. When you ask for scriptures, and I give them, we can talk about them. When I ask for scriptures, and you say they aren't necessary, we can't talk about them.
Not too important (not saying I don't care again). Automaton is a bit down the rabbit-trail from essential need in conversation. I never bring it up. It just doesn't fit reality for anybody so I react by trying to show it isn't a great discussion point (whether I've succeeded or failed).
It doesn't fit reality because you are a closet open theist.
I don't believe I was incorrect (it is 'why' I wouldn't care). If I could be, I'd be happy because God is good. All this said, I think automaton cannot but make odd rabbit trails. We are on one :Z
Supra
Actually no. If I were convinced of truth, I'd be Open Theist tomorrow. "Not dealing with it" is imagined by Open Theists more often than not. There are cognitive hurdles (and walls) against me being an Open Theist.
Supra x 2
There is no 'do not want to' but rather because I cognitively object: "won't." Want has not a lot to do with it. I don't either want nor not want to be an Open Theist. I simply want truth, and then follow it.
Except no Calvinist agrees with you. Not. Even. One. It means, literally, you made it up (the 'unjustly' part).
No, not overtly. But the Westminster Confession illustrates it. Here's John Piper talking about it:
This is part 1 of a 4-part series on how to talk about God's sovereignty over sin. In his last three sermons, John Piper has made some provocative statements about God’s sovereignty over sin. August 12: “God created [Satan…
www.desiringgod.org
It might be worth noting that almost all of this is related to our respective views of time. I don't believe God can be constrained, logically, to a unidirectional time-frame. It just isn't possible and makes no sense on a metaphysical level at all (it can't).
Yet, where do we get our metaphysical descriptions of God? From scripture. So let's use it.
On that note, if I start calling you a 'settled' theist?
Defined how? I've been showing where I think settled theists are wrong. Why do you think I qualify as one?
That we can't get something from the future? We have no ability at this moment to make it happen. God cannot be bound by time else He cannot be God (type that sentence into a Google search or chatGPT).
Another great source? Again, let's get our understanding from God's message to us, not from automatons, eh?
Most philosophers do not understand the middle-ground because they believe in their conception that will not change to reflect the difference, between temporal and atemporal. They believe something erroneous: That temporal cannot come from atemporal, yet material came from non-material (God). We think of the universe as 'concrete' and the spiritual as ethereal. It is opposite: Physical comes from nonphysical. God has no 'substance' that we'd recognize other than metaphysical assent. It is a whole conversation and I wonder sometimes if the difference between theologies is whether someone can follow quantum physics propositions or not.
But you haven't shown what "atemporal" is beyond your own opinion.
Explanation: The best I can do about assertion on this is a box (God is infinite/beyond thus this a limited box analogy fails).
Inside the box is everything, moving. As you are watching the movement over one second (compared to eternity), you see everything simultaneously. You are both observing and capable of interacting 'inside' the box yet outside of it and capable of doing other things while watching what is going on inside the box.
Some Like Craig assert 1) that movement and duration is necessary for existence (I disagree else God would have a beginning). and that God
must be temporal (again, I disagree, no beginning, thus no single direction, it is impossible).
Others assert 2) that God must be atemporal or else He can not have always existed because time locks one into unidirectional constraints.
Again, where do we find such explanations in the bible? Are we merely having a philosophical discussion?
In a nutshell, these two groups argue against one another and I argue it is rather both. God is relational to but not restricted by, time.
IOW, by arguing against one another, they created a false dichotomy in their limited thinking. It'd be akin to God walking and talking with Adam and another group insisting that no temple can contain Him (spiritual or physical, not both). Answer? "You set up a false dilemma and if the two of you don't grasp what you are doing falsely, this conversation will go on forever." The answer
is 'both.'
If I can name a way something 'can' happen in reality, it means that the possibility has to be entertained to be true. If it 'can' happen logistically, then God 'can' do it. The past converges with 'now' and into future when something from the past yet exists. It means the thing exists, not just existed, not just 'will exist' in the future. If language intimates the time barrier slips (and it does) then the possiblitity (at least) exists. It isn't just that it is possible, literally you existed in the past. Literally you exist now, and we know from scripture you will literally exist in the future and that choices past and now, will affect/do affect your future. The lines between past present and future are randomly drawn. I am not actually communicating with you right now. You will believe I am because I wrote a note into the future. Now is
my now. Your now is actually my future!
Your response is to my past. It is over and done with, yet you will write as if you are affecting my future even though I cannot change one word of this now (later I can if I correct, but this is yours, now, exactly as it is and unalterable, yet aterable, depending). It means we always interact with our immediate past and immediate future in a tangible way that erases lines. On this dialogue, you and I are interacting over hours if not days 'as if it were minutes.' Some will interact and say 'this is absurd!' It is sad they say that. It is not absurd: this is quantum mechanics and physics. Are they telling me their ability to think is limited by 'fairy tales!'
This is the stuff of actual interaction, a necessity of one's past meeting my present, and going into the future by necessity. We cannot communicate otherwises. Your 'now' is reading this in my future. I wrote it in your past. One of my favorite Mitch Hedberg jokes: "Here is a picture of me when I was younger." "Dude! Every picture of you is when you were younger!"
This is why there are a number of thread on TOL about time, this specific disagreement. I believe it the lynchpin and proverbial nail in the coffin. If one can ever get another to understand why their view is essential to truth, it will be the end of one theology or the other. It will 'settle' the debate once and for all.
Not what I asked. This one was specific. Can you reject God? I say no new creation can. 1 John 2:19
I think a new creation can. In Revelation 20, there are many that have been resurrected. These are new creations, as far as I can tell (this goes back to what death and resurrection mean, from one of my threads on the topic). If they are new creations, ones that are incorruptible (death has no more dominion over them, because death and Hades have been thrown into the lake of fire), and they are thrown into the lake of fire, isn't because they have rejected the true source of their salvation?
Will go back to illustration above and add one question: What does 'fully' mean to you?
I'm not understanding your question. Fully means without reserve, but it's still only actionable on what is, not what isn't. "Fully everyone in the world" includes everyone living in the world right now, not someone who might live in 2050 or someone who might have lived in 1850. So it depends on what is meant (context).
This is a time-constrained thought process and question. It visualizes 'future' in a linear direction. If I can get any Open Theist to break from linear conception of time, it will at least help them grasp many of the rest of our premise in Christianity.
Why should any do so? Give us scripture.
Conflation. You aren't really asking if He interacted with a beast. You are asking if He saw something. Do you know what a simile is?
It is like a metaphor.
Caution: Your mind jumped to an absurd to try and deal with 'future' in order to dismiss it and gave me no other option such as "Did John see this in the future?" where I could say 'yes.' Rather, you are asking about a beast, no matter 'when' he saw it, and asking if something 'like a beast' is a real beast. It is a simile, not even a metaphor at this venture. It is 'like' a beast.
Did John experience the future in seeing the beast, or was he "shown" something about the future?
Final answer: Yes, John saw something that he likened to a lion. Yes, it was future (had to be): Revelation 4:1
Good. Now you are admitting that God, in His heaven, is subject to time, since John was "up here", but not yet viewing anything on the earth yet.
Revelation 5:4,5
Then these sobering words:
Rev 22:18 For I testify together to everyone who hears the Words of the prophecy of this Book: If anyone adds to these things, God will add on him the plagues that have been written in this Book.
Rev 22:19 And if anyone takes away from the Words of the Book of this prophecy, God will take away his part out of the Book of Life, and out of the holy city, and from the things which have been written in this Book.
So why do you imagine God's atemporality? Are you adding, or taking away?
We both want to be careful we aren't adding nor taking away by our assertions!
I believe it does so by limiting and misconceiving who God is.
Are you using Einstein's vocabular when you say relative? I want to make sure because for us, time seems unidirectional yet do not agree that past/present/future intersect all the time with no clear barrier other than a watch that actually measure light/position change and calls it time.
The box analogy. I believe I need to hear how you qualify relativity and unidirectional time.
God doesn't go back in time. I think I've made that clear. I expect His is the absolutest of timeframes.
They actually are if you understand relativity. Einstein wasn't merely speculating, he was drawing clear diagrams of how 'it must be.'
Einstein's relativity imagines everyone has their own timeframe, but no one can go back in his own.
Let's set parameters. 1) Possible not meaning will, but 'can be done.' 2) because time is relative, it means that what we experience is the actual. In that sense it will not change and we can consider God's stamp on it as 'done deal.' 3) Hypotheticals have to be tested, but show rather possibility. If it is 'possible' it means doable.
With God all things are possible, so even the impossible is doable. So it doesn't really matter if we can figure out a way for it to work, there are some things we think are doable, but God doesn't do them (for whatever reason). And we shouldn't suppose that because we can think of them God does them or even causes a like effect.
Regarding assertions about future knowledge erasing choice:
1) Can you describe how we could get an almanac from the future? Is it possible?
-I'm anticipating "No,no."
Agreed. There is no such thing as an almanac from the future. It isn't possible. (btw, I think you probably mean a history book about future events rather than an almanac, as an almanac is mostly prediction of future events).
How can we assert how it even came into existence then? If it is simply a record 'from the future' the information is based on our choices.
And others choices who maybe haven't even been born.
2) Here then the caution: We are talking about our views on God and they should be based on solid information. An inkling that I might not have a freewill, or an inkling that I have one, aren't bedrock kinds of ideas. We want theology that is based on as much bedrock as we can find. It generally means we have to go deeper to find rock. The attempt here (a good one) is to find the bedrock of argument about time.
Which should come from a reliable source. Our sources here on earth are mostly unreliable. We can't study the future, but we can study the past and make projections from what we learn. We can study the Bible and extrapolate, but we should recognize the difference between biblical truth and extrapolation.
Haven't watched interstellar (or many other movies).
The paradox comes 'within' time as unidirectional.
No, the paradox comes from imagining time as not unidirectional.
While I haven't watched Interstellar, I'd imagine it might have covered convergence of time. We all have 'now.' Note that your 'now' is my past (I still believe this, but I didn't just write it). In fact, I can relegate a lot of this post to my past now too. I wrote some of this an hour ago. Because "I" haven't changed, I can determine that my past information is still good and current 'my now, your future.' I can also determine that it will be good for yur information in the future (your now, my future). Here is the question: When did I write this? Another question while...I...am...typing...this...sentence: Can I change it? It is just now, in my past. Can I change the sentence? It depends on what you mean but it is now in my past and in your future. I can certainly go 'back' after you are done reading this and I wish I was clever enough to come up with a cool future change that would leave a 'wow' moment but I'm just not that clever at the moment (maybe later :thinking). At any point we think about past present future, we do 'time-travel' to a degree else we'd not be able to conceive of Lincoln being shot over 100 years ago. Pictures, from the past, help us to envision what Lincoln looked like today. He doesn't look like that today. He has turned to dirt. All of this to say past/present/future aren't quite the hurdles nor starkly (at all) separated. There are people celebrating tomorrow already on the planet. In your mind you are saying, 'no, they are experiencing our now.' That's egocentric, maybe they are the ones who have time right and we should be on Thursday. "Not what I'm meaning." I realize I'm not literally calling into the future, but I am calling into Thursday! They are calling into what for them is yesterday. Their birthday will not be celebrated the same day if they are in one place or the other. (It means our concepts of time, even in what we imagine marches forward, can march any direction).
Hardly.
Or did God ordain you'd say that?
(I get it from both sides).
But 'when' did it become unchangeable. We 'think' the past makes it so, but we are trying to nail exactly when something cements after being wet. I think of time as 'wet.' "When" did it become solid? In the future where it is given?
Again, it depends not when it was laid, but when it stopped being wet.
Yet when cement stopped being wet is the issue and it is my assertion 'when' isn't the issue over all of it, just when it became hard and unchangeable.
We have to, the idea is when time becomes solid. If it is gelled, then everything is in place as it sets and can be moved until it sets. The end product was already there and what is preserved is what no longer moves.
Our posting past becomes solid when we hit "post".
First, I was asking if that is what you had in mind because your story seemed to fit. Second is it okay to predetermine Josiah, just not you? Jeremiah (1:5)? How important was choice to either of them? Were either Open Theists?
David was. [2Sa 12:22 KJV] 22 And he said, While the child was yet alive, I fasted and wept: for I said, Who can tell [whether] GOD will be gracious to me, that the child may live?
Was Josiah an automaton? Jeremiah? Was his or his lack of choice a negative connotation? Sometimes robots have choice (randomizer). Is 'choice' really an indicator of meaningful relationships? I'm asking because there is a disconnect between assertions and what I'm seeing. They don't seem to be connected like Open Theists are trying to connect them, so I have to ask. It doesn't look like choice nor negative are true. Where do the assertions come from? How do they hold up against scriptures we can test them with such as Jeremiah and Josiah?
Why do you think these things are exclusive? Cannot God make sure His will is done in a matter without foreordaining everything else?
Ordain/foreordination is the word. The other conflates ideas with God's desire.
Good. We agree. Let's just call it "settled theism":
https://webstersdictionary1828.com/Dictionary/ordain
"properly: to set"
I'll try to read it sometime.
