And why did you offer another verse to discuss, rather than the ones that I believe demonstrate my position? In your passage, God may have been asking rhetorical questions, where are you and who gave you the fruit? Scripture does not say whether God knew the answers to these questions.
It is obvious that God was putting Adam on the spot rather than that He was trying to obtain information that He needed and did not know. Do you believe that God in His eternal state decided to take on a finite body and cease being omnipresent and omniscient (even of present events) just so that the obviously anthropomorphic and anthropopathic statements can be taken "literally"?
However, when God told Jonah to say, In forty days Nineveh will be overturned, if He knew He would not overturn it, then that is inconsistent with God's character. Do you have an answer to my question?
Jonah
wanted God's judgment on Ninevah. If it was
clearly the intent of God revealed to Jonah that the purpose of the preaching was simply to give them a heads up of what they would inevitably face, I do not see where Jonah would have a problem doing just that. However, Jonah
clearly recognized that God's
intention was that of a call to repentance, thus the warning. If you
disagree with that, then you argue that Jonah knew God's nature better than God Himself! In the last chapter, Jonah complained "I
knew you were a merciful God." Then, God said "Wow, Jonah, I wasn't really intending on sparing these people, but because they repented, I
changed my mind and decided to spare them. You knew my mind better than I knew it myself!"
Puh-lease! If the open theists cannot see God's intention in the book of Jonah and the
obviously implied conditional statement in the message to Ninevah based on the narrative of the story, they truly have lost it. Theologians have understood this until the open theists suggested otherwise.
When God said, now I know, that shows God did not know beforehand. So if scripture is true and cannot be broken, your view is unbiblical.
Nope, we can recognize anthropomorphisms and anthropopathisms where they are obvious, whereas the open theists get themselves in a bind by taking certain passages literally.
When the Bible says that God "stretched out his hand," what was the size and shape of His hand and into what did He "stretch" it? Obviously, it is figurative language to describe a solemn act of God.
When the Psalmist says that God is his Rock, Fortress, Strong Tower, and so on; or when Jesus describes Himself with the "I am" passages, are these to be taken "literally" or figuratively?
Now, let's address Genesis 22 and the "now I know" challenge:
Gen 22:12 And he said, Lay not thine hand upon the lad, neither do thou any thing unto him: for now I know that thou fearest God, seeing thou hast not withheld thy son, thine only son from me.
Did God not know that Abraham feared Him? Well, what is God's intention with this statement? God had
already justified Abraham by his faith in Genesis 12, and He had already given him the promise that he would be the father of many nations. Was God testing Abraham for
His need or for
Abraham's need? I guess it would depend on what "now I know" from God means. Also, if God needed to
learn if Abraham was "faithful enough" for the promise, and Abraham had truly libertarian free will, how many tests would God need for Himself to "guarantee" that Abraham would not mess it up?
Let's compare Scripture with Scripture, shall we?
Gen 18:20 And the LORD said, Because the cry of Sodom and Gomorrah is great, and because their sin is very grievous;
Gen 18:21 I will go down now, and see whether they have done altogether according to the cry of it, which is come unto me; and if not, I will know.
This text should be a problem for the open theist view that asserts that God knows the past and present exhaustively, but not the future. Taking this statement to Abraham "literally" would require the following:
1. God is not omnipresent. He has a finite body, and He can only be in one "place" at a time. Hello, Mormonism!
2. God does not exhaustively know the present. He has to "go down... and see" something to know what is currently going on.
3. God does not exhaustively know the past. He has to "see whether they
have done." Either He has forgotten something, or His finite presence does not afford him full knowledge of the present or the past.
If "now I know" from 22:12" must be taken literally, then should not "I will know" from 18:21 by the same standard?
If so, do "go down," "see," and "have done" have to be taken literally as well? If so, how can open theism's assertion that God knows the past and present exhaustively, but not the future stand up to scrutiny? It would seem that open theism is subject to the same scrutiny of trying to figure out what is "literal" and what is anthropomorphic or anthropopathic. The open theist will, of course, accept whatever fits their
philosophical understanding of God according to their demands of "libertarian free will," and filter the literal/figurative distinction through this lens. The open theist position is no more Scripturally driven than what they criticize.
Gen 11:6 And the LORD said, Behold, the people is one, and they have all one language; and this they begin to do: and now nothing will be restrained from them, which they have imagined to do.
Gen 11:7 Go to, let us go down, and there confound their language, that they may not understand one another's speech.
Here we have again statements from God that would seem to make Him less than the "I AM"--the self-sufficient one--that created the universe, if taken literally. God tells Himself to "behold" the people. If this is the Trinity, then perhaps the Father happen to "stumble upon" this event and then tell the Son and Spirit "come and see this." He then tells them that they need to confound the language of the people. How shall they do this? Well, they all have to "go to" and "go down" and "there" confound the language. They spoke the universe into existence, yet they are limited in both time
and space. To confound the language, they have to "go down" to where the people are. They have to move from one space of occupancy to another.
Perhaps, God is making an anthropomorphic statement to make a point. The people are "down" trying to get "up" to heaven. God is "up" in heaven "looking" "down" on these pitiful people. God is "up," they are "down." It is an
understatement to emphasize that these proud people endeavoring to be "high" were truly "low." If not, then we have a God Who is limited in time and space. He has limited knowledge of past, present, and future. He is just a bigger guy in the sky and trusting Him for your every need is futile. He may not even know you exist.
Sorry, I will compare Scripture with Scripture and understand what is literal and what is figurative and know that my God
can be trusted at ALL times. He transcends His creation, yet He can relate to it without being necessarily limited to its dimensions. He is omnipresent, not bound to time, omnipotent, omnibenevolent, and perfect in holiness and justice. He holds my very future in His hands (I am speaking anthropomorphically, of course), and I can rest entirely in Him. Praise the Lord! If He can be taken
literally by surprise in His eternal state, then there is N
NE in whom I can place my unwavering trust, and evil truly rules the universe. God forbid.
