Welcome to Baptist Board, a friendly forum to discuss the Baptist Faith in a friendly surrounding.
Your voice is missing! You will need to register to get access to all the features that our community has to offer.
We hope to see you as a part of our community soon and God Bless!
Yeah, and I was born a monkey! Wait - was I?reformedbeliever said:I do wish you would not go away Tom. You teach many of us. You and Allan are very articulate, and we could all learn from you. God bless you on your decision to not respond. I know it is tireing. That is why I told MB to look it up. Plus, i'm just not as good a communicator as you and Allan.
Tom Butler said: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.
Hey, I'm not a free-willer - I'm a resposibitiestssssss... I need to create a better word :laugh:reformedbeliever said:Understood. It was getting a little mushy huh? I can't believe I was talking to free willers that way.... lol. :jesus:
Allan said: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?
39 And Jesus said, For judgment I am come into this world, that they which see not might see; and that they which see might be made blind.
40 And some of the Pharisees which were with him heard these words, and said unto him, Are we blind also?
41 Jesus said unto them, If ye were blind, ye should have no sin: but now ye say, We see; therefore your sin remaineth.
Originally Posted by skypair
Then consider this, Tom -- God became man and dwelt among us. Was that a change for God in your view? Did God have to change His location in order to walk among us? Did God have to change His status vis-a-vis the angels? All are true, right? God changed in many ways.
Originally Posted by skypair
He knew everything that could be known at the time, right? He knows the beginning from the end "from before the foundation of the world" as reformb likes to use. That doesn't mean that He knew before some point in time when He decided to create the world.
Originally Posted by skypair
All things can be known in advance, as soon as God chooses to know them. He knows everything about all that He chooses to create. Imagine, for instance, the things He could have made but didn't. Why didn't He? They wouldn't "work" with His plan. Imagine the sin He could have done but didn't. Why didn't He? Because it is not in His character, right? In fact, He doesn't do these things because He knows of the dreadful consequences.
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?"Is this sort of like God chooses not to know something until he chooses to know it?
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."In trying to preserve God's omnipotence you have made him only partly omnipotent.
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.You've also eliminated his omniscience. Or, at the least, made him partly omniscient. Except there is no such thing.
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.All those changes are things God put Himself through in order to save us. Deny it and you deny Christianity and the Trinity, friend.
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.
WHAT?!!Skypair said: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."
Wouldn't be accurate, Tom. The Bible says God made Himself a little lower than that angels -- not "veiled" Himself.Tom Butler said: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.
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.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.
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.How is this not Open Theism heresy?
Allan said:WHAT?!!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.
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.skypair said: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
How is this not Open Theism heresy?
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
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)??Tom Butler said:My understanding of Open Theism is that God knows everything that can be known, but some things can't be known from eternity.
WHile I agree with most of this, you have also boxed God in to a corner.Tom Butler said: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.
I thought is was interesting and somewhat poinent.39 And Jesus said, For judgment I am come into this world, that they which see not might see; and that they which see might be made blind.
40 And some of the Pharisees which were with him heard these words, and said unto him, Are we blind also?
41 Jesus said unto them, If ye were blind, ye should have no sin: but now ye say, We see; therefore your sin remaineth.
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??Tom Butler said: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.
Ominiscience could explain this just as easliy. Why as seeing man as "robots" do you choose omnipotence instead of omniscience in this case?Since he is omnipotent, his prophecies are certain to come to pass,
None of which limits His omniscience nor excludes it. Nor does this make Him deterministic of all other things as well.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.
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?To put it simply God knows what will happen because he has the power to make it 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?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.