Featured Which camp are you? II

If God does not know all He is not omniscient. He is not God.

 

Ditto.

 

I think Clark Pinnock's theology was corrected on August 15, 2010.

 

I have an exercise that I used while teaching that may be worth doing here.

Take a blank piece of paper and draw a horizontal line in the middle of the paper from left to right. Stop short of the edge of the paper on both sides. The line represents linear time. The far left part of the line would include events like Creation, Adam, the Fall, Abraham, Moses, David etc. As you move further to the right there will be a spot on the line for Christ, the Apostles, the Reformation, the American Civil War, World I, World War II, Apollo 11, the 1969 miracle Mets, Starbucks, iPods, and Desperate Housewives (I am being a bit cheeky). Somewhere on that line is you and me. The far right part of the line is future history including, ultimately, the second coming. Everything outside the horizontal line is Eternity -- eternity pre-linear time and post-linear time. You and I only occupy a blip on that linear timeline. We will have an existence in the eternal state but as finite beings, we only occupy a spec of time prior to then. Before anything was created there was God. We know this because scripture says, "In the beginning God". God exists in and outside of time. When it comes to human history (which occupies a span within linear time), God sees the beginning and the end at the same time. All things are forever before Him. After all, Jesus is the Alpha and the Omega. The idea that anything can occur within linear time that escapes the knowledge of God is flawed. Any decree or purpose of God is made from His position as Lord of all. The idea that God must acquiesce or change because of something humanity does displays a small view of God.

 

His Openness theology was *ahem* slightly amended.

 

"exhaustive. God already knows every minute detail of the future since before time."


As God, there's nothing He doesn't know or have all planned out.

 

God knows everything, period.

 

Some, typically Calvinists/Determinists, will commonly argue that God knows all things, therefore He must have predetermined all things that ever happened. Thus:

1) Necessarily God has fore determined everything that will happen
2) God has determined X
3) Therefore it is necessary that X will happen

X = Evil

Therein, arises the Problem of Evil which leads to Theological Fatalism brought on by man's (Calvinists?Determinists) philosophical attempts to put God's knowledge in a box , limiting Divine Knowledge, which leads to either limiting His abilities to create man with free will and responsibility for His judgment or as I would consider leading into heresy they resort to attributing evil to our Holy God.

 

I didn't say that He causes all things.
I said that He works all things, literally, after the counsel of His own will ( Ephesians 1:11 ).

1) Perhaps, perhaps not. But I can say for certain that He has determined the outcome of all events in history ( Proverbs 16:9, Proverbs 21:1 ).
2) Yes, He may have.
3) Yes, it will.

X does not equal evil.
X = His will regarding the outcome of all events.
Our opinion of it is irrelevant.

He is God, and we are His creation.
Anything that He does is righteous.

God determined that He would send His Son...it happened.
God has determined to save a people for His namesake and His mercy's sake, and He has called and will call them by his Gospel...it is happening.
God has determined that the Tribulation will happen...mark my words, 3.5 years of the worst trouble this world has ever seen, will come to pass.
God has determined that He will judge all those outside of Christ and cast them into the Lake of Fire, for all eternity; that will come to pass, as well.

Therein rise the "problem of evil" from your viewpoint...it's not "fatalism", it is God exercising His right as divine Sovereign to rule over the affairs of men.

Amos 3:6 <----- is there calamity in a city, and God has not caused it?
Isaiah 14:24
Job 23:13
Daniel 4:35.

Many others.

"Calvinists" do not limit His ability to create man with a free will...His word says that man's freedom of choice, his will, is against Him and His ways...it's not "free" and unbiased as it seems your wishful thinking would like it to be.
Regardless of mankind's continued willful rebellion, we are responsible for our sins...
Because the King says that we are.

Heresy?
The free will "gospel" is heresy, because it seeks to divide the body of Christ with a lie that Scripture does not support....that man can do something to gain God's favor, thereby obligating God to save him.
That is works, not grace ( Romans 11:5-6 ).

There's the difference, Benjamin.
You appear to stand on the power of your will to "accept God's offer", while I stand on God's mercy and grace alone, and I accept His promises because He has accepted me...not because I "accepted Him".


That is the reason that I am in this "camp"...because I see things in His word that cause me to sit and contemplate this God that has saved me, and His terrible power that even the demons tremble at.
...and you don't.


Guess what, Benjamin...
If you truly understood half of that precious Book you hold in your hands, you would know this:

Our Holy God is worthy of far more respect than it seems you are currently willing to give Him.

My only wish is that you could see Him as I do, because it would fill you will awe and cause you to get very small and quiet before Him.

 

Isaiah 46:9 Remember the former things of old: for I am God, and there is none else; I am God, and there is none like me,

46:10 Declaring the end from the beginning, and from ancient times the things that are not yet done, saying, My counsel shall stand, and I will do all my pleasure:

46:11 Calling a ravenous bird from the east, the man that executeth my counsel from a far country: yea, I have spoken it, I will also bring it to pass; I have purposed it, I will also do it.

46:12 Hearken unto me, ye stouthearted, that are far from righteousness:

46:13 I bring near my righteousness; it shall not be far off, and my salvation shall not tarry: and I will place salvation in Zion for Israel my glory.

To the OP... Chew on that for awhile!... Brother Glen

 

Omnicience is in the Bible:

1 John 3:20
Hebrews 4:13
Psalms 44:21
Acts of the Apostles 1:24
Proverbs 15:3
Job 28:24
Psalms 94:9-11

There are many more where these came from.
Read them carefully, and please pay attention to every word.

The "King James Bible" is the Bible.
Just because we speak cruddy, lazy, truncated and beat-up English nowadays, doesn't mean it is any less God's word.

FYI:

A "cockatrice" = snake, poisonous snake.
A "unicorn" = "uni", meaning "one", and "corn" meaning horn....one horn. = Rhinoceros.


May God bless you, sir.

 

God never had to learn anything new, or to make up His plans based upon new understanding/facts on things!