Open View of God

Chris,

Since you profess to know eveything that is a "damnable heresy" and have therefore already judged that those who believe these things are on their way to hell, how can I or anyone else whom you have thus "convicted" have any meaningful discourse with you?

 

(Keith- this does not explicitly say He knows all the future exhaustively. It can be interpreted to say He knows all that is available to be known)
Your god has limited knowledge of the future. My God is the God of hundreds of prophesies that have come true. He’s batting 1000! Are future events “available to be known?”

I have spoken it; I will also bring it to pass. I have purposed it; I will also do it. – Isaiah 45:11b

Another example that flies in the face of your god:

Psalm 139:1-6 (NASB95)
O LORD, You have searched me and known me.
You know when I sit down and when I rise up; You understand my thought from afar.
You scrutinize my path and my lying down, And are intimately acquainted with all my ways.
Even before there is a word on my tongue, Behold, O LORD, You know it all.
You have enclosed me behind and before, And laid Your hand upon me.
Such knowledge is too wonderful for me; It is too high, I cannot attain to it.

Job 23:10 (NIV)
But he knows the way that I take; when he has tested me, I will come forth as gold.

Keith said, “All of them (except myself) are self described Fundamentalists and Baptists.”

Are you aware of the rules of this board, Keith? If you are not a Baptist then you are breaking rules that you agreed to when you registered.

 

Michael the cheap shot artist! Anything intelligent to add?

 

John,

Keith is a Baptist; I know him from another board. Just because he wasn't cut from the same cookie-cutter that made you and Temple doesn't mean he's not Baptist.

I, a cheap shot artist? I've never accused a Christian brother of holding to a damnable heresy.

I don't want to add anything TOO intelligent; it might just go over the heads of some here--not mentioning any names.

 

I didn't think so!

Based on Keith's wording, it was a ligimate question to ask. Thank you for minding his business.

[ October 14, 2001: Message edited by: John Wells ]

[ October 14, 2001: Message edited by: John Wells ]

 

Thank you for minding mine.

 

Hey! I'm not involved in this discussion, yet. How'd my name get in here?

It may be a while before I do get involved in this one. You guys have put up a lot of stuff here. I went through the whole thread to see where it is heading (fearing a collapse into a KJV Only argument) and I'm barely a third of the way through Chris Temple's first post. I haven't hit the links yet.

This has been a topic of discussion in a Bible study group in which I am involved, though that was some time back. I have copied the thread and will take it back there at first opportunity. Will return here when we've sifted through it a bit.



[ October 14, 2001: Message edited by: ellis ]

 

ellis,

My apologies on your name; it has been corrected.

 

There was a development in church history called Socianism. It basically taught that divine omniscience means knowing only that which can be known and that God is ignorant concerning future decisions of His creation. Neotheism is nothing more than "Socianism in modern garb." (Dr. Larry Oats, MBBC)

Just because men like Finney may have believed it, doesn't make it right.

 

First, if it's "Socinianism" he and you are talking about, you should at least get the spelling right.

 

Instead of attacking my spelling, Michael, how about showing me from the Bible how neotheism is correct.

 

I just wanted to make sure of exactly what movement you were talking about. If it was indeed Socinianism, this is a variation of ancient Arianism, a doctrine that denied the Trinity.

Finney was not a Socinian.

 

From a fellow doing his doctoral work at TEDS:

Verses "supporting" OT: 105
Verses supporting the traditional view of God: 4695

How should we understand the 105? We should understand them in light of the 4,695.

 

[21] Because that, when they knew God, they glorified him not as God, neither were thankful; but became vain in their imaginations, and their foolish heart was darkened.
[22] Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools,
[23] And changed the glory of the uncorruptible God into an image made like to corruptible man, and to birds, and fourfooted beasts, and creeping things.
Romans 1:21-23

 

I wrote this several days ago and never posted it but I want to get it off my desktop now and I figure this is as good a place as any to dump it.
_________________________

What does the “test of Abraham” (Gen 22)prove about the knowledge of God?

For the open theist who claims this passage proves his point, he is on the horns of a dilemma for it proves too much. First, it erases God’s knowledge of the past and present. God had already known Abraham’s faith and counted it to him for righteousness. For the OT, such knowledge and “crediting” is useless because there was still more to be known. He could not know the present state of Abraham’s heart for he must await a test to find it out. However, even then, the most the test would prove is the immediate commitment, not the future commitment. That would still await to be seen. Therefore, God could say nothing of the future. Second, it renders ridiculous the claim of the author of Hebrews that Abraham believed God would raise him from the dead if necessary. Third, it renders the test meaningless because God since God stopped him short of carrying out the act, he could not really know anything about Abraham’s true faith. Perhaps in the last several inches of the plunge with the knife, Abraham would have backed out. Fourth, Abraham's faith was already known by the statement "We will go worship and we will come again." There are other reasons that could be given but this is enough for now. Gen 22 is a very weak passage to support a very weak position.

The God of the OT renders prayer unnecessary and useless for divine intervention that might sway the free choices of man would certainly be less than fair. The God who risks must want a level playing field (isn't that the reason for abandoning control to begin with?) Therefore, to intervene for one person from whom people are praying while not intervening for another person who simply was not lucky enough to have concerned Christian friends who prayed for him would be a gross injustice and violation of fairness.

The OT has no real God at all. The God of the OT is not omnipotent; he is reactive—omnicompetent—able to react to whatever man might throw his way. The God of the OT cannot have ordained a redemption before the foundation of the world because he simply could not have known man would have sinned. He could not have had a predetermined plan for the crucifixion as Peter says in Acts 2 because he had no way to know that man would sin and no way to know that Rome would have domination over the Jews and no way to know that Jews would hate the Messiah and … ad infinitum. God could only know the almost infinite numbers of possibilities thereby filling God’s head with useless information.

The God of OT deals with the suffering of mankind with, as one person put it, plausible deniability. He simply didn’t know what would happen. He could not, as Joseph said, "meant it for good." In fact, he could not have meant it for anything because he could not have meant it period. He simply could not have known what the brothers would do. He has, as this person said, become Clintonian: “I didn’t know. I feel your pain.” What a glorious God that must be.

The most recent two issues of BibSac have a two part review and rebuttal of the Open Theism idea which is well worth reading.

[ October 17, 2001: Message edited by: Pastor Larry ]

 

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by keith:
Would like to see the complete list (references only) of verses supporting each view according to this doctrinal research. I would like to see some of what counts as support(e.g. hidden assumptions) <HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

What are hidden assumptions? That is a hermeneutical issue. I believe it is still in progress and, knowing the people at TEDS, it will not be allowed to be shoddy.

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>I found very few explicit verses supporting the OV (that is non-exhaustive foreknowledge) or against it. It just isn't a subject for discussion. I found many verses implicitly supporting the OV.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

I have never found one that doesn't require the contradiction of clear Scripture. You are right that it isn't a subject for discussion. That is why it is amazing that it is being discussed.

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR> Verses that encourage or challenge their readers to faithful living
imply that the readers can in fact do so by his or her's own volition.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

This shows a typical misunderstanding of free will. To accuse God of disingenuousness because he doesn't conform to what (some of) our fragile, finite minds think he should seems out of line for the creature.

However, I am not going to take time to defend the Scriptural view here. I gave a couple of recent references to read and they would be worth looking at.