Why the Blindness?

Yeah, and I was born a monkey! Wait - was I?
No, that was Darwin - whew, that was close.

But you rank pretty top notch in my book Reformed. We may not see eye to eye on everything but we both see our need for Christ our Savior quite clearly. Thank you God for the Grace He has bestowed on us. Praise God for that fount filled with blood wherewith we loose ALL our guilty stains.

 

" We loose all our guilty stains " ? We can not loose anything , but He looses us from our sin and shame . I am sure you just made an unintentional error there . But we do lose all our guilty stains .

 

Okay guys, enough of the lovefest.

I appreciate the gentle spirit of the discussion. I'm not going anywhere, but I just don't feel the need to go over ground already covered.

However, if Allen or skypair or webdog give me a opening with some new comment that begs for my wisdom and knowledge, I'll probably jump right back in.

I'll probably cite a previous post, since I've already written more about this subject than I know.

 

Understood. It was getting a little mushy huh? I can't believe I was talking to free willers that way.... lol. :jesus:

 

Hey, I'm not a free-willer - I'm a resposibitiestssssss... I need to create a better word :laugh:

Besides we baptist can't be known for loving one another and edification - it would ruin our image, huh?

 

Lol........according to Baptist history ...... yes.

 

When posting in the original sin thread I happen to notice something I never really took much notice of before.

I thought is was interesting and somewhat poinent.

What do you all think about it concerning the blindness of Israel and its causation.
We definately see God doing the blinding and that Christ is the very reason for it because it was judgment against them for rejecting truth. The pharisees only magnify that point. But then Jesus says something... What do you all think??

 

Tom: If you'll think about it, you really don't want to make this argument.

Me: Actually, it appears that you don't want to answer it to me. All those changes are things God put Himself through in order to save us. Deny it and you deny Christianity and the Trinity, friend.

Tom: Sounds like Open Theism for sure. Sounds like something I used to tell my kids: "I know everything, but I don't know that."

Me: Then you need to reconsider your paradigms. Tagging a stereotype to me is not answering the question, now is it?

That's better. Did you know you were going to marry your wife when you first saw her? Did you know you were going to propose? Or did you choose that somewhere "down the road?"

Don't be silly. Can God choose to relinquish His omnipotence and still be omnipotent?? Isn't that just what He did to come as Jesus? What you need to learn is that God can do anything He wants and sometimes what He wants is to not be "in control."

God is everlasting, right? Now lay out a timeline -- and "Alpha and Omega." Just laying out a start suggests choice/decision -- knowledge at some point in time that did not exist a nanosecond before. How could you know everything about something that didn't exist -- hadn't even been "dreamed up" or thought of yet? God knew everything about creation before it happened and even now. What I propose is that He didn't know everything about it till He decided to what to create.

skypair

 

Skypair said

I think it's more accurate to say that Jesus veiled his divinity in some aspects. Jesus retained all the power of the Father. He said, you've seen me, you've seen the Father. Putting on flesh did not change God's nature, attributes, traits, power or knowledge. Jesus' will was the Father's. I don't deny the Trinity, and I don't see how this view denies it.



Skypair:

The answer to the question is "no." God cannot be omnipotent and not omnipotent at the same time. God does not will something contrary to who he is and what he is.

How is this not Open Theism heresy?

 

WHAT?!!
This is a complete contradiction of the very Nature of God Himself. He is the Sovereign Lord. Though we and Calvinists differ on how we see God in absolute control it has never been espoused, nay would never be spoken so that God is not in full control at all times. Christ didn't relinquish anything but set it aside (or chose not to use it) and is Why we find Him obeying the Fathers will and being lead and empowered by the Spirit. He was our example to show us how to live in God. We are to be lead by the Spirit who alone knows the heart, and mind of God, that we in turn through His revelation may know that which our God desires of us. But never was Christ nor God Himself for that matter NOT in control. Do not forget that Jesus could have done His own will and states so in two places. In the Garden "Not my will, but thine" but also when they came to arrest Him and Jesus stated "could I not call to me 10,000 angels". Was He in Control? Absolutely! And in so much control that He could Even control Himself. You gotta have SOME kind'a power to control yourself who IS God.

 

ANYHOO...

WHoever reads this: Go back and read Post #127 and tell me what you all think about the verse and I found and you see it in context of this discussion on BLINDNESS.

 

Wouldn't be accurate, Tom. The Bible says God made Himself a little lower than that angels -- not "veiled" Himself.

I'm sorry. I should have said God can "delegate" some of His power and still be omnipotent. Naming the animals, for example. Adam was "permitted" to name them but God could have countermanded Adam's authority at any time.

If I understood your definition right, you said open theoism was God creating the earth and then letting the earth go. As a dispensationalist, I beleive that God has intervened at least 7 times to save men from extinction -- the flood is one instance, the cross another. Those are merely the major interventions. Every time He answers prayer, He involves Himself in the prayers of men.

skypair

 

Allan -- it hardly seems worth the effort to reply to this. Jesus could have done His own will (stayed in control of His life) but didn't. YOU could stay at the helm of your life, but didn't. Or are you really saying that you do control everything in your life and have not relinquished any to God? Do you really mean to say that God gives us no choices? That Christ had no choice?

skypair

 

We are not Christs to be compared with Him because our situations are vastly different. However, Christ relinquished nothing TO God for He was God. Yet in the incarnation as a man He yeilded His life/will (personal desires) to God the Fathers Will. He UNLIKE us could OF HIMSELF make any choice He so desired. We make choices in light of revealed truth.

I never said that God doesn't give US choices. What I stated is that Chirst Jesus was never NOT in control.

 

Quote:Tom Butler

You misunderstood or I wasn't clear. You described Deism.
But I agree with the fact that God has intervened in the affairs of men, many times. That, of course, does not make me a dispensationalist.

My understanding of Open Theism is that God knows everything that can be known, but some things can't be known from eternity.

 

Well, that sounds like what I believe -- if that is the only tenet of it. So where does scripture say that God knew everything about now in eternity past (as I stipulate, before creation was a "gleam in His eye," so to speak)??

skypair

 

God's omniscience is related to his immutability and his omnipotence.

Since God is immutable, he cannot gain new knowledge, for that would be a change.

Since he is omnipotent, his prophecies are certain to come to pass, his decrees are certain. Daniel 4 tells us he raises up kings. It also tells us that God does what he wants to and no one can hold back his hand.

To put it simply God knows what will happen because he has the power to make it happen.

The definition of omniscience "God knows everything that can be known," leaves the door open to the claim that some things just can't known in advance.
That's too weak.

God knows all that was, is, and is to be. Period.

 

WHile I agree with most of this, you have also boxed God in to a corner.

God can not know unless He makes it happen but God can not obtain any new information either therefore nothing can happen for Him to know about.
God can not set or decree something into beinging and know nothing of it till it is created. That makes absolutely no sense.

That God can gain no knew information pertaining to that which He has determind to set forth which is according to His own counsil and IMHO a more accurate rendering.

Would this be more accurate Tom for you or not, cause you gave quite a paradox (IMO) in your post. I could be wrong and it wouldn't be the first time but it is a rarity :tonofbricks:

 

When posting in the original sin thread I happen to notice something I never really took much notice of before.

I thought is was interesting and somewhat poinent.

What do you all think about it concerning the blindness of Israel and its causation.
We definately see God doing the blinding and that Christ is the very reason for it because it was judgment against them for rejecting truth. The pharisees only magnify that point. But then Jesus says something... What do you all think??

 

For the umteenth time -- God's CHARACTER is immutable. Where oh where do you get this idea that God doesn't change His mind, for instance?? Where do you get the notion that God did not say "Let us make man in our own image" when one microsecond He had not decided or collaborated with Himself to do so??

Ominiscience could explain this just as easliy. Why as seeing man as "robots" do you choose omnipotence instead of omniscience in this case?

None of which limits His omniscience nor excludes it. Nor does this make Him deterministic of all other things as well.

Or He omnisciently knows what will happen, period. Calvin tries to limit God's omniscience by saying that God had to control everything in order to know what will happen. Now does that seem right to you? That He couldn't know unless He determined it to happen?

Yes. The creation of time does allow for things to be unknowable at one time and knowable at another. But God, at some point in time, make His plan seeing all of time and then set it in motion. That's why we say He knows the beginning from the end. But consider -- there is NO end to eternity. Does that mean He doesn't yet know about eternity? or hasn't decided about it? Might He come to the end of man and decide to create something else somewhere else?

skypair