As the sun goes down...
On my "Einstien" post, Jason asked about how I explained prophesy if God doesn't know what choices will be made before they are made. I begin my answer by pointing out that Yahweh is a covenant making and a covenant keeping God. Most, if not all, the promises made by HIM are preceded by an "if". And for all blessings and curses, we are given a choice. Will we or won't we?
Through the Word, our LORD has revealed Himself to us as a loving parent. Our Father!
I am a parent (and a grandparent as well). I am merely human, and quite flawed, but there are many times when I can predict what my children and grandchildren are going to do. I can look out the window at my grand daughter riding her bike a little too fast, and I can know if she doesn't slow down she will fall. I can even know that when she falls, she'll come running to me and I will wash off her owie and put a bandage on it. When they were little, I would tell my boys not to climb the tree in the vacent lot. They had the choice whether or not to climb. I hoped they would obey, but I wasn't surprised when they didn't. Why did I keep bandages and bactine in the medicine chest?
God knows the time and the seasons - He put them into motion. He knows the last day from the first. He determined it. For each human soul that ever was or ever will be - God has a plan. A good plan, to prosper - not to distroy. And every human soul has a choice, a multitude of choices.
And God has bandgaes and bactine in the medicine chest when we need them.
I know this. I can understand. I see it and can feel it. Sometimes I just don't have the right words to explain it. I go back to Genesis 6:6. When all mankind was making bad choices and all human thought was dark and evil, and God grieved that He had even made them...but Noah found favor in the eyes of God.
I am not an open theist, in the truest sense of the word, because I believe in the truth and authority of the Bible, I beleive in absolute Truth - Jesus Christ, literally and historically as well as spiritually. I believe in His cross. I do not believe that truth is relative. If anything, I would say I am a Weslyan, sympathetic to Catholisim, and in love with Jesus.
And I am still singing "shine Jesus, shine!"
17 comments:
Maryellen - you said, "I am not an open theist, in the truest sense of the word, because I believe in the truth and authority of the Bible, I beleive in absolute Truth - Jesus Christ, literally and historically as well as spiritually. I believe in His cross. I do not believe that truth is relative"
I think your definition of open theism is greatly different from the "official" one. I don't know a single open theist that doesn't believe in the truth/authority of scripture, absolute truth, etc. Where are you getting your definition?
i confess i am getting my definition of open theism mainly from people who are opposed to it, as well as to the postmodern
and emergent movements.
i got into a debate about whether or not someone who believed in a metaphorical Christ was truely a Christian.
i've blogged on these things before and i hate to keep bringing up the old debates...
but sometimes what seems so clear to me...i don't know how to say it.
God is Love - God is Light - Jesus is The Truth. can't that be enough?
Jason, most of the prophecies regarding Jesus in the old testament were for the time they were written as well as for the future times when Jesus would arrive and totally fulfill them, and infact, some are waiting to be finally fullfilled. Did Jesus know he would be betrayed by Judus, and that Peter would deny him? Ofcourse. What does that knowing prove? When I know my child is going to sneak into the cookie jar am I taking away his free will or do I just understand his nature? That is not the same as my predeterminig that he will steal cookies...never mind...
I've logged in on this conversation way too many times to interfere with the periphery this time, except to say that Jason's comment surprises me. You can't believe we are having this conversation? Look through the archives, this is probably one of the most commented on topics on this blog.
what i find most interesting is that this is the subject that gets the most reaction. not the cross, not the light, not the concept of why and how to pray, but this - the sovereignty and all knowingness of God...i look at the Word of God with the premise that God is Love and in Him there is not Darkness. A God whose Will includes evil, whose plan includes Hell for the majority of people born, does not fit that premise.
A loving parent does discipline. A loving parent does sometimes allow things to happen to a child that may hurt for a season (explain to an infant why you are allowing a doctor to poke a needle into it's leg) But a loving parent always wants what is best for all his/her children - and is always ready to forgive and restore.
well we could discuss this here, or over breakfast mom...
A loving parent does discipline."
The question is not who the parent is. The real question is.
who are the children of God?
Theologians through out the ages have attempted to explain what the Bible means and theologians have disagreed. The Holy Spirit and Scripture itself offers the best explaination. Pastor Art can go to the greek and the hebrew, as can many other pastors/teachers. The answer lies in the heart of the Scripture. God is Love. God is Light. In Him is no darkness at all. The Enemy can not steal, but the enemy can pervert. The enemy can not create or distroy, but man can choose to turn his back on God, to walk the other way. At anytime the lost can cry out for salvation. At any time the saved can choose to give up their inheritance. And even then, the Father in heaven is waiting for the change of heart.
your perspective is encouraging. Stay strong, I glad you're still singing.
Jason - You have demonstrated nothing. A paltry example that doesn't prove either side but simply exemplifies that there is an argument as to the meaning of it. Look at her cookie jar example and you will clearly see how the specifics in regard to Jesus could easily be explained even if the argument was that he was human, and not the question of what omniscience means.
Why do so many of you claim to present proof where none is given. She contradicts your point so instead of engaging in intelligent conversation you simply claim you won? In what world does this type of theory work?
So many of you claim that our position on free will denies God supremacy. It does no such thing. What your explanation does is deny the intricacy with which He can take that intelligence and functionally apply it. The measurement of true wisdom is the ability to apply what you know. Yet you deny this of God. Read the "facts" in your bible. God provided free will. The ability to choose between right and wrong. If he created you and knows before hand every choice, you are merely an automaton. This does not apply the free will, and thus, if it is the case, demonstrates that God lied to you. Obviously not true. Resultant fact: You have free will. You make choices. God knows the options you have. God creates the rules to the game, and can make his final plan work regardless of your choice, because the intricacy of His knowledge surpasses your own. You confuse the scope of his knowledge of likely events with the surety of the decision. He has to remove that surety to give you free will. Almost as big a sacrifice as his own son.
Give credence to the complexity of His plan. Don't belittle it by calling it a script.
I never said that God was not all knowing, or all powerful. I do not deny that Jesus knew...and God knew. That He (the triune Godhead) knows. What I am saying is that the current doctrine of Predestination and Divine election does not support the revelation of a God is who is Love and Light. And that we, as liner beings tend to limit God's knowing to our concept of knowing. Knowing every possible choice and every possible outcome, but not knowing until the point in time that the choice has been made what that exact choice will be, is still knowing.
Interesting how folks who quote scripture the most seem to understand the gospel message the least.
Why can we not accept "predestination" without rejecting "free will"? Well, our understanding of time is so limited, we put God in the same box we're in. First of all, the present moment, as we experience it, is known to God, just as all future moments and past moments. In fact, every moment of time is a "present" moment to God. God exists outside of time, so it is not surprising to me at all that Jesus had foreknowledge. Even though Jesus was the temporal, earthly, personification of God in the flesh, why is there even debate over whether He could have pre-cognition of future events?
Also, this whole "automaton" business is rubbish. Just because God can see our entire lives, and every choice we have made and will make in the future in His "present" moment, it does not mean that we are guided and forced to make choices. It also does not mean that God does not interject into our nature, and alter the course of human history at certain points.
After all, Jesus existed in our time frame... in fact, God decided to do this!
Miracles occur, because God deems them necessary for one reason or another. They change the course of events on Earth, but don't violate our "free will".
You CAN have it both ways. We are predestined, sure! But this says nothing about what choices we have not yet made... only that God already knows what they will be.
Your examples of Jesus' predictions about his life don't support the idea of knowledge of the future. They support, as I have said, the fact that God can make that which he wills so. This doesn't mean he always does so.
I have stated all of the precepts of my understanding of this concept too many times. I am not going to simply hammer you guys with the same words again. Nothing you have said refutes my position. Nothing you are likely to come up with will either. In case you forget, this is a theoretical argument. We will never understand what God understands, so none of us will "win" this argument.
Jason, anyone with a buck and accesst to a dollar store can buy a Bible and read those words.
Who are they written to? Whoever reads them and believes? Or just the minority of people who God elected to be saved? When my pastor preaches to his congretation that God has a perfect plan for our lives - a plan we sometimes botch up, who is he preaching to? What about the drunk who staggers in off the street? Is the message for him? Not if he isn't one of the elect.
What about Billy Grahm? The crowds of people who listen to his voice and come forth to repent. Is the message of the Saving Grace of Jesus for all of them, or is salvation only for a minority of those listening to his words? The ones preordained for salvation. What about the majority of people who are not predestined for salvation? Why are they even here?
To make life miserable for the few who have been set upon the narrow path by their loving Father?
The jews were/are the elect. Jesus is the predestined one. It is not God's will that any be lost. God is Light, in Him there is no darkness at all, but some people choose the darkness, because their deeds are evil. Lets go back to Genesis 6:6.
If only the Jews are the elect, and I have never read Scripture that supports that, then what do we do with Romans 4 the entire chapter, Romans 11:11-36, Eph 2:11-22. The tree is composed of wild and cultivated branches, only the root is the same. Therefore all who have been placed on or were not removed from the tree (sounds like God did the choosing) are the elect. The promise was given to Abraham before there was such things as a Hebrew, Jews, or Israel.
Jesus was predestined, but Eph 1
is written to the chuch not to Jesus and it clearly states that the readers were/are predestined.
The scripture cited in a previous comment from John 10 also shows that;
1. Jesus and the Father are one.
2. The sheep are in both of their hands, as they are the same hand and;
3. They cannot be snatched away because the Father has given them
to the Son.
The mistake being made here is that anytime predestination is mentioned, that it is a "Calvinist/European" creation. Calvin taught supralapsarian theology. I have always been talking about what is actually in the scriptures. Also the Europeans were not always wrong about the Word anymore, than the Jews were always wrong about it.
The Gospel is to the Jew first and then to the Greek so the Bible is also to the Jew first and then the Greek. Therefore, all who have ears to hear will come including the drunk.
The elect is both Jew and Gentile.
Let us not make the emergent/liberal error of throwing the baby out with the bath water.
Most of us are Gentiles so why would the Hebrew culture apply to us? The Torah is Scripture and applies to all who are His.
Jason - Just curious. Why would you start your comment with my name without addressing what I said?
Jason - And if God wills to let us walk a ways without his interference, this contradicts him working all things as he wills? I stated that he doesn't always do so, I didn't say anywhere that he refrains from doing so against his will. I'm sorry, but the connection of your statement to mine still seems to be missing.
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