Does God Change His Mind?!

Because of your next statement, I have to assume that you think my viewpoint is heresy.

Please provide a scriptural framework for your accusation. I am willing to be convinced.

I don't think anyone has advocated the view that you alleged.

 

Baptist Believer,

Please don't pretend that those opposed to your view do not base their view on Scripture. We do. We just have a different interpretation than yours. We both interpret some passages in light of others. We interpret the historical accounts (Hezekiah, Ninevah) in light of the didactic statements about God's nature. You do the opposite.

Here is an article that deals honestly with some of these issues revolving around Open Theism:

http://www.desiringgod.org/library/topics/foreknowledge/glory_foreknowledge.html

 

I don’t think that you ignore scripture. I just think that many people are reading Greek philosophical presuppositions into the scripture.

Furthermore, I would love for someone to engage me with scripture in a non-hostile manner so I can sort this out.

Yes.

Um, no.

I try to interpret scripture in light of God’s revelation in Christ. Christ’s teachings on prayer and the example of His ministry guide my interpretive assumptions.

I’ll check it out.

Thanks!

 

JD, you said

ROFLOL!!!!

blessings,
Ken

 

It is hard for me to understand why God would predestine all of you to carry on this argument and waste all this time. Surely had he known what was going to transpire he would have changed his mind and given you all a free will to debate or not to debate so as he would not be responsible for orchestrating this chaotic thread.

I wasn’t going to post but then I thought what if I am predestined to post? If I am predestined to post and I don’t does that mean God changed his mind or maybe I am in sin because I rejected the perfect will of God?

This seems like frivolous post does it not? IMO it matches the rest of this thread.

 

Baptist Believer said:

What an absolutely stupid statement. Of course the passage doesn't go away. It explains God's will in human terms. That is what an anthropomorphism is.

 

Theomorphism. Look it up. Those of you who believe God can change His mind are guilty of this.

 

Great link, thanks. I especially like this Martin Luther quote early in his presentation:

 

Amen, Marcia. And the specifics are astonishing, aren't they? I don't recall where this prophecy is, but I remember studying the prophecy about someone literally scraping the city of Tyre off the face of the earth and throwing it into the ocean. Then all that's left are rocks upon which fishermen dry their nets. That's a REALLY far-fetched prophecy, in my opinion. (Desperately tries to resist making pun about a flat Tyre.)

Then along comes Alexander the great. He can't get to the island (I believe it is the rebuilt city of Tyre) to attack it. So what does he do? He has his men scrape all the buildings off the abandoned city of Tyre and throw all the rubble into the ocean to create a causeway to that island. And what did people do after that? The fishermen dried their nets on the rocks left over.

 

Ezekiel 26:14

 

2 Hezekiah 14:8 and 3 Thessalonians 9:74

 

I see we have a wise guy (besides me).

Ezekiel 26:14 - (speaking of Tyre) - "I will make you a bare rock. You shall be a place for the spreading of nets. You shall never be rebuilt, for I am the LORD; I have spoken, declares the Lord GOD."

Verses 4-6 are even better - "They shall destroy the walls of Tyre and break down her towers, and I will scrape her soil from her and make her a bare rock. She shall be in the midst of the sea a place for the spreading of nets, for I have spoken, declares the Lord GOD. And she shall become plunder for the nations, and her daughters on the mainland shall be killed by the sword. Then they will know that I am the LORD."

 

Because of your next statement, I have to assume that you think my viewpoint is heresy.

Please provide a scriptural framework for your accusation. I am willing to be convinced.

I don't think anyone has advocated the view that you alleged. </font>[/QUOTE]Actually J.D. did, just above that post:

 

Maybe He does know every detail of how everything would be worked out. Doesn’t prove the future already exists only that God is Omniscient.

(Isa 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:

(Isa 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.

 

Thanks, whatever, for identifying the passages (I feel like I'm about to break into a "who's on first" routine). I didn't have time to look it up when I posted, and that was very helpful.

I don't want to derail the thread, but I thought I'd mention what I think is a very significant point in the passage:

God makes Himself known through various means, including His wrath. It is obviously very important to God that He display His wrath, and display the fact that He is the one who is responsible for the calamity that is to come. This and MANY other passages that describe how God will cause calamity end with "Then they will know that I am the LORD".

Yes, God is love. God is merciful. God is longsuffering. These are all characteristics of God that He makes known through His actions. But God's wrath is still yet another characteristic He goes out of His way to make known. That's something I think the free-willers have a very hard time accepting.

 

Marcia, do you hold to a Futurist view for God?

So God is outside of time and is not bound to it in any way? How can God even tell time in this view? Do time statements in scripture not really mean anything because God is only outside of time?

You have some problems if you do hold to a Futurist view in God’s creation starting with the P.O.E. in the beginning and God lying when He said all that He had created was very good.

God that is not bound to time in any way apparently has no problem communicating it to man whom is bound by time in such things as latter days, near-far, days to come, shortly, etc.

If God in truth is not able to exist in time why would it be necessary for Him to create it for us if not to interact with us, or maybe you believe He doesn’t interact with us?

In the dimension of time is where man meets God, so can God exist within time?

How about Jesus, did He exist within time, was He ever bound by time?

You are quick to want to label things into a category of man’s interpretations of time, but I would rather stay away from mans faulty theologies and out of the either/or while considering God capable of both in/out of time which does not take 2 Gods to be within the truth just as in 2 Persons being in 2 places unless you also have a problem with Trinity under this reasoning.

It just isn’t that easy to start branding titles in this area that we do not fully understand.

 

There is a 3rd view, which was being debated between Brandon C. Jones and Humblesmith in one of the other recent threads on here. Brandon discussed his view of God being "atemporal" while still holding to the orthodox view of His perfect foreknowledge.

Marcia, I'm behind you all the way on this Open Theism issue. It's a growing problem in Evangelicalism.