Scott Shahan
Puritan Board Sophomore
Do people go to hell because of their "unbelief" or do people go to hell because God predestines them to hell?
Thanks
Thanks
Do people choose to go to Hell?
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ReformedWretch
Puritan Board Doctor
People go to Hell because we all deserve to go go there, and left in our "natural" condition that's where we will indeed be.
Scott Shahan;
As difficult as it may be to accept, various scriptures point to God predestining some to go to hell.
Just to reference a few: We see God hardening Pharaoh's heart throughout the book of Exodus; Judus being predestined to betray Christ; God hating Esau, yet not Jacob. There are others, but those are the ones that come to mind right off.
And we must also remember it is God who gives us the ability to believe or not...even in thinking about this, something I just realized in trying to answer this question (and something I've never realized before)..if we look at the first 12 Disciples...we see mentioned...Jesus seeing and calling all the disciples BUT Judas, (and please correct me if I'm wrong, as I may be overlooking something), but I don't recall seeing any where Christ *calling* Judas to follow Him.
As difficult as it may be to accept, various scriptures point to God predestining some to go to hell.
Just to reference a few: We see God hardening Pharaoh's heart throughout the book of Exodus; Judus being predestined to betray Christ; God hating Esau, yet not Jacob. There are others, but those are the ones that come to mind right off.
And we must also remember it is God who gives us the ability to believe or not...even in thinking about this, something I just realized in trying to answer this question (and something I've never realized before)..if we look at the first 12 Disciples...we see mentioned...Jesus seeing and calling all the disciples BUT Judas, (and please correct me if I'm wrong, as I may be overlooking something), but I don't recall seeing any where Christ *calling* Judas to follow Him.
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BobVigneault
Bawberator
Adam (no, not Leavelle) chose for us, he was our representative (Federal Head). The choosing is done. All in Adam are dead (going to hell). Unless God, in His mercy acts to interrupt our march, then we should all go to hell. Either way, God will be glorified before men and angels.
But God does act, God condescends, God makes provision, God elects, calls, sanctifies, glorifies. God sent His Son into the world to save sinners.
Taking counsel within himself and for his own divine purpose he has elected to save some to display his Glory. He was not obligated to do this but did it as an expression of his Love.
God the Father is forming and preparing a bride for His Son, this is history, what an amazing thing it is to watch.
Remember this, in heaven and in hell, the inhabitants experience the holiness of God. Those in heaven will be protected by the saving garment which is the righteousness of Christ. Those is hell will face God's holiness wearing only their sins. Instead of protection they will become the source of endless torment. Our sins are our own, truly our own - neither God nor Satan gave them to us - our parents, our friends didn't give them to us. We had the freedom to choose that which we desired the most and because of our inherited fallen nature (In Adam all have sinned) we desired and chose sin (Romans 1).
But God does act, God condescends, God makes provision, God elects, calls, sanctifies, glorifies. God sent His Son into the world to save sinners.
Taking counsel within himself and for his own divine purpose he has elected to save some to display his Glory. He was not obligated to do this but did it as an expression of his Love.
God the Father is forming and preparing a bride for His Son, this is history, what an amazing thing it is to watch.
Remember this, in heaven and in hell, the inhabitants experience the holiness of God. Those in heaven will be protected by the saving garment which is the righteousness of Christ. Those is hell will face God's holiness wearing only their sins. Instead of protection they will become the source of endless torment. Our sins are our own, truly our own - neither God nor Satan gave them to us - our parents, our friends didn't give them to us. We had the freedom to choose that which we desired the most and because of our inherited fallen nature (In Adam all have sinned) we desired and chose sin (Romans 1).
Do people go to hell because of their "unbelief" or do people go to hell because God predestines them to hell?
Thanks
Yes to both questions.
ReformedWretch
Puritan Board Doctor
Whew, thanks for making that clear Bob!
This touches on what Scripture teaches us about the nature of Christ's judgment.
Last Sunday's sermon was from Isaiah 8, where God reiterates His promise to bring destruction on Judah through the Assyrians, whom Ahaz had hired as mercenaries against Pekah (Israel) and Rezin (Syria). This form of judgment comes up again and again throughout Scripture: God gives people what they want.
"Judah, you want the Assyrians? Here they are."
"Mr. Doe, you hate me and want no part of my grace? Here you are."
Last Sunday's sermon was from Isaiah 8, where God reiterates His promise to bring destruction on Judah through the Assyrians, whom Ahaz had hired as mercenaries against Pekah (Israel) and Rezin (Syria). This form of judgment comes up again and again throughout Scripture: God gives people what they want.
"Judah, you want the Assyrians? Here they are."
"Mr. Doe, you hate me and want no part of my grace? Here you are."
Gloria
Puritan Board Sophomore
MrMerlin777
Puritan Board Post-Graduate
BlackCalvinist
Puritan Board Senior
Answered like a true band director.
(scene from my classroom)
Student: Mr. Gilliard, when I get here, which note do I play ? C# or Db ?
Me: Yes.
Scott Shahan
Puritan Board Sophomore
I am having this discussion with a methodist pastor friend of mine about whether God can Change his mind and this is one of his arguments that he sent to me, I need some help with it,
thanks
So, Scott, you are saying that in those passages in Scripture where we see God changing His mind, he isn't? Instead, the Holy Spirit inspired writers had to use concepts the readers could understand because God is so lofty and incomprehensible? I would agree to a certain point but what you are arguing doesn't fully explain the idea of God changing his mind. The point is there was a change that occurred.
How can we truly be certain of what God is doing anytime? We can't. Yet we want that logic in there, don't we? It goes back to the Scripture that God can do anything He wants because His thoughts are not our thoughts and His ways, our ways. So, in a sense, we are saying that God by changing his mind demonstrates and reinforces the passage about God's thoughts not being our thoughts, etc. The same passage can buttress your argument that we can't truly know because what appeared to be God changing His mind was all part of God's plan, yes? The incomprehensiblity and mystery of God can support both our arguments
thanks
So, Scott, you are saying that in those passages in Scripture where we see God changing His mind, he isn't? Instead, the Holy Spirit inspired writers had to use concepts the readers could understand because God is so lofty and incomprehensible? I would agree to a certain point but what you are arguing doesn't fully explain the idea of God changing his mind. The point is there was a change that occurred.
How can we truly be certain of what God is doing anytime? We can't. Yet we want that logic in there, don't we? It goes back to the Scripture that God can do anything He wants because His thoughts are not our thoughts and His ways, our ways. So, in a sense, we are saying that God by changing his mind demonstrates and reinforces the passage about God's thoughts not being our thoughts, etc. The same passage can buttress your argument that we can't truly know because what appeared to be God changing His mind was all part of God's plan, yes? The incomprehensiblity and mystery of God can support both our arguments
Machaira
Puritan Board Freshman
Does your friend cite any passages in particular? If not, ask him to give you a few. The proof-texts most generally used are usually isolated from their respective contexts and completely ignore other passages that clearly say that God not only doesn't change His mind, but God never changes at all.
Num 23:19 God is not man, that he should lie, or a son of man, that he should change his mind. Has he said, and will he not do it? Or has he spoken, and will he not fulfill it?
Mal 3:6 "For I the LORD do not change; therefore you, O children of Jacob, are not consumed.
Jam 1:17 Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights with whom there is no variation or shadow due to change.
Scott Shahan
Puritan Board Sophomore
Thanks for those scriptures they are very helpful to me concerning this disscussion. 
What does the word relent mean? Does the word relent mean "change".
What does the word relent mean? Does the word relent mean "change".
Scott Shahan
Puritan Board Sophomore
hi
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Who actually "changes" in these events/Scriptures? God stays the same, while men turn themselves to rebel or to repent toward God. If you are in rebellion, what will that "consuming fire" feel like? If you repent, has God stopped being a "consuming fire?" But the things that happen are many times put into words, according to the order that men experience them.
1) Israelites rebel against God at foot of Mt Sinai. Moses intercedes (God uses means all the time in this world, and he decreed Moses' pleas), and God accepted him mediation. This is the classic text of Moses, mediator of the Old Covenant. Jesus is Mediator of the New. Does God keep "changing" his mind toward us when you and I sin? No, Jesus pleads for us. Are we to suppose that at the very foundational level, God was really going to wipe out Israel? End his plan of redemption? Start over with Moses? Surely he can do what he wants, and surely he could have done some inconceivable thing, and still caused his promises to come to fulfillment. But truth is, he wanted Moses to exercise the role of the mediator. So his "relenting" is no less a part of his plan than any other event that comes to pass.
2) David sins, and the nation is judged. First, David exercises a mediatorial role here. Again, the role of a mediator is exercised, the Messiah is foretold. And again, what does the completion of the judgment appear to men as? As "relenting". What does the end of the spanking I give my child appear as, to the child? As my "relenting". But as far as I was concerned, I simply gave the child as much as I decided he deserved.
3) Psalm 106--story of Israel once again. What the verse says is that God "relents" because of the "covenant love," because of the promises he's made, and that will not change. God disciplines his people to bring them into a right relation with him, to gain repentance. This kind of action doesn't actually help the case of the person who wants to say God changes. His discipline is the product of his unchangeableness.
4) Isaiah 14:6: irrelevant, or else expand on why? Because it was unrelenting, and now relented? Ask someone to explain how starting, continuing, and stopping activity "in" history, indicates changes "in" God.
5) Isaiah 57: false repentance (people change only outwardly, hypocriticaclly)--should God's aspect change, since they haven't changed in heart? God says 'No'.
6) Jer. 4: God says the judgment is coming, no amount of religious activity will change that; the people won't be repenting anyway.
7) Jer. 8: irrelevant again
8) Jer. 15: God won't relent. The situation posed is obviously hypothetical, neither Moses nor Samuel is alive to mediate. Their mediation wouldn't avail, God says. His judgment is coming. Who wants to say, contradicting Paul, that everything that happened to Israel was NOT part of God's decree, and that such events DIDN'T occur, and WEREN'T written down "for our instruction"? Just think of what we would NOT have for our instruction, if the exile HAD NOT happened. So, God is telling Jeremiah this is going to happen, period.
9) Jer. 18 & 26: Who changed? people, they repented.
10) Jer. 31: irrelevant, human repentance
11) Jer. 42:10--what? is God SORRY he punished evil? Of course not. Ridiculous. God's discipline ends. He expresses himself as we understand our own hearts, when we discipline our own children. Our own compassions bring the infliction to an eventual end. We relent.
12) Ezek. 24: How does a verse like this support the other position? It says "I won't relent." AND (!) it says that men are judged according to what they do, presumably including true repentance! So, is someone saying that God is unpredictable or predictable? Because if he's predictable, it means he doesn't change. Is someone saying that the Bible just contradicts itself?
13) Hosea 13: again, I think this is simply a mistaken inclusion.
14) Joel 2: repentance (change in people) produces a different aspect in their approach to God
15) Amos 7: Amos exercises mediatorship
16) Jonah: Ninevah (the people) repents. Why did God give them 40 days?
God remains still. He remains a fixed point, while we all like satellites, and the world and all its events whirl around and about. Predicating all of our changes upon God just shows how perverse we are, how willing we are for us to be the fixed point, or at least for us to bring God down to our level, to make him act like a man. But God himself says: "I am not a man, that I should repent." Whatever else we get from that comment, it is clear that human repentance/relenting is something utterly different and distinct from God's.
1) Israelites rebel against God at foot of Mt Sinai. Moses intercedes (God uses means all the time in this world, and he decreed Moses' pleas), and God accepted him mediation. This is the classic text of Moses, mediator of the Old Covenant. Jesus is Mediator of the New. Does God keep "changing" his mind toward us when you and I sin? No, Jesus pleads for us. Are we to suppose that at the very foundational level, God was really going to wipe out Israel? End his plan of redemption? Start over with Moses? Surely he can do what he wants, and surely he could have done some inconceivable thing, and still caused his promises to come to fulfillment. But truth is, he wanted Moses to exercise the role of the mediator. So his "relenting" is no less a part of his plan than any other event that comes to pass.
2) David sins, and the nation is judged. First, David exercises a mediatorial role here. Again, the role of a mediator is exercised, the Messiah is foretold. And again, what does the completion of the judgment appear to men as? As "relenting". What does the end of the spanking I give my child appear as, to the child? As my "relenting". But as far as I was concerned, I simply gave the child as much as I decided he deserved.
3) Psalm 106--story of Israel once again. What the verse says is that God "relents" because of the "covenant love," because of the promises he's made, and that will not change. God disciplines his people to bring them into a right relation with him, to gain repentance. This kind of action doesn't actually help the case of the person who wants to say God changes. His discipline is the product of his unchangeableness.
4) Isaiah 14:6: irrelevant, or else expand on why? Because it was unrelenting, and now relented? Ask someone to explain how starting, continuing, and stopping activity "in" history, indicates changes "in" God.
5) Isaiah 57: false repentance (people change only outwardly, hypocriticaclly)--should God's aspect change, since they haven't changed in heart? God says 'No'.
6) Jer. 4: God says the judgment is coming, no amount of religious activity will change that; the people won't be repenting anyway.
7) Jer. 8: irrelevant again
8) Jer. 15: God won't relent. The situation posed is obviously hypothetical, neither Moses nor Samuel is alive to mediate. Their mediation wouldn't avail, God says. His judgment is coming. Who wants to say, contradicting Paul, that everything that happened to Israel was NOT part of God's decree, and that such events DIDN'T occur, and WEREN'T written down "for our instruction"? Just think of what we would NOT have for our instruction, if the exile HAD NOT happened. So, God is telling Jeremiah this is going to happen, period.
9) Jer. 18 & 26: Who changed? people, they repented.
10) Jer. 31: irrelevant, human repentance
11) Jer. 42:10--what? is God SORRY he punished evil? Of course not. Ridiculous. God's discipline ends. He expresses himself as we understand our own hearts, when we discipline our own children. Our own compassions bring the infliction to an eventual end. We relent.
12) Ezek. 24: How does a verse like this support the other position? It says "I won't relent." AND (!) it says that men are judged according to what they do, presumably including true repentance! So, is someone saying that God is unpredictable or predictable? Because if he's predictable, it means he doesn't change. Is someone saying that the Bible just contradicts itself?
13) Hosea 13: again, I think this is simply a mistaken inclusion.
14) Joel 2: repentance (change in people) produces a different aspect in their approach to God
15) Amos 7: Amos exercises mediatorship
16) Jonah: Ninevah (the people) repents. Why did God give them 40 days?
God remains still. He remains a fixed point, while we all like satellites, and the world and all its events whirl around and about. Predicating all of our changes upon God just shows how perverse we are, how willing we are for us to be the fixed point, or at least for us to bring God down to our level, to make him act like a man. But God himself says: "I am not a man, that I should repent." Whatever else we get from that comment, it is clear that human repentance/relenting is something utterly different and distinct from God's.
Machaira
Puritan Board Freshman
For example:
Jon 3:10 When God saw what they did, how they turned from their evil way, God relented of the disaster that he had said he would do to them, and he did not do it.
Some will say that a verse like this clearly destroys the concept of God's immutablility. But again to arrive at this conclusion simply ignores what Scripture as a whole has to say.
In Jonah 3, God pronounces judgment through His prophet as a means to call the people of Nineveh to repentence. Verse 5 tells us that they believed God. Verses 6 - 8 say that they then fasted in sackcloth and turned from evil and violence. As a result God relented and did not carry out judgment. This was clearly God's purpose or He would have destroyed them long before without warning - and certainly without engaging in the whole drama of chasing down a runaway prophet. Speaking after the manner of men of course, God went to a lot of trouble to warn the Ninevites. Why . . . unless it was His purpose to save them? As its been pointed out already, who actually changed here? God's "relenting" simply means that He didn't carry out His threat. The threat of judgment was merely a means to an end.
I touched on this in a blog a while back; I realize I'm of no authority, but a lot of people at the Nazarene school I went to were into open theism, and they certainly never read the Puritanboard. So I figure someone had to talk some sense into them. Skip forward to the bolded parts for a condensed version.
*********************
The traditional doctrine of inspiration in no way "rules out" the use of metaphor, simile, personification, etc. In fact, it darn near requires it. Inspiration entails that God "condescends" and ontologically lowers himself to communicate to His image-bearing, soul-possessing bipeds in their own languages, in words they can understand. And human language is replete with figures of speech. However, open theists treat them as indicative, crystalline statements that fell out of the heavens, the black obelist that we mere monkeys should dance around and touch so that our understanding of God will "evolve".
Open theism will either continue on in its own inconsistencies, or collapse into absurdity under the weight of its own exegetical baggage; either way, as it stands now, it has some serious hermeneutical reparations to fork over.
I'm going to avoid inserting random Scripture verses into this post, not because I am Roman Catholic or Eastern Orthodox, and adhere to some higher or equal authority, but simply because the verses/texts/passages, etc., that both sides appeal to, are already well known to both.
The fundamental issue with open theism is hermeneutical, and a subsidiary issue, the "buttress" of their manifesto, is historical.
Open theists need to find a consistent way of interpreting Scripture. As it stands, they draw an artificial distinction between anthropomorphisms and anthropopathisms. Technically, anthropopathisms (attributing human emotional states to God) are a subset of anthropomorphisms (attributing human characteristics to God), even though anthropomorphisms are practically used nowadays just to talk about God having a body, lips, arms, etc.
Open theists want to have their cake and eat it too. They adopt one set of "rules" for the emotive passages, and a different set of "rules" for the body passages. When God is spoken of as changing his mind, etc., then it is all Sola Scriptura, "Stop corrupting the Scriptures", "Take it literal", yadda yadda. But when it comes to the plain and much more numerous statements about God having a heart, a mouth, nostrils, arms, a body, etc. (and may I emphasize, much more numerous) they equivocate, and hem, and haw, and take the same position that wiser evangelicals (and the historical church) have taken vis a vis the "human states of mind" that are attributed to God: Namely, that all such revelation is God's accomodation of His infinite self to our finite minds. Technically, all revelation is analogical, or anthropomorphic. It is God lisping to us.
No open theist has to date made a convincing argument that upholds the double standard. In fact, the opposite is happening. Clark Pinnock, the Open Guru that is the best known proponent of the movement, actually suggests that God is embodied in his Most Moved Mover. Check out pages 33 & 34 if you don't believe me.
Of course, it gets really tricky when the Psalms attribute wings to God. Well if God's embodied, and we are in the image of God, where did our wings go? Is that where the metaphor of "the Fall" came from? We just dashed to the earth like Icarus, losing our image-reflecting wings? Stuff to think about.
Not to mention the fact that God is often called a fire, a rock, a shield, etc. Does He have multiple bodies? Or are all those just like... Vishnu's avatars or something? Pinnock? Boyd? Sanders? Rice? Anyone?
Okay, let's for a moment just grant this completely arbitrary distinction between anthropomorphisms and anthropopathisms. Let's just accept their mindless irrationale that operates according to the same dignum deo filter that they accuse classical theism of using.
So, here's the caveman version: Mental-emotional attributions GOOD. Body-mouth-wings attributions BAD. Me Tarzan, you Jane!
So, working under those assumptions, how "literal" do open theists want to take various mental-emotional attributions (remember, Zog, these are GOOD.. Un-ga-wa!)?
Genesis 18:20-21, Yahweh talking: "Because the outcry against Sodom and Gomorrah is great and their sin is very grave, I will go down to see whether they have done altogether according to the outcry that has come to me. And if not, I will know."
If taken seriously, this sounds suspiciously like Nancy Drew. God hears an "outcry", presumably from the righteous people on earth, or perhaps from detested angels, who knows. Okay, this sounds bad. He needs to go check out the report and get it confirmed. So he travels there (but that's a body statement, Zog, so BAD, just ignore that part, its anthropomorphic, duh!), and if something's amiss, He'll know, because He'll see for Himself !
Keep in mind that a: this shows God's incomplete knowledge of the present if taken literally. God needs to "see" for Himself what's actually going on down there. Oh wait, it gets worse; b: it shows incomplete knowledge of the past. Because the "outcry" was a response to things, and God is going down to confirm things that have already taken place. "And if not, I will know."
So the hermeneutic of open theism, consistently applied, eviscerates God's knowledge of the future, present, and past. Do you think this God could cut it in Vegas? Would he make the finals of the World Poker Championship, or would that Greg guy with the funky glasses catch him on a wicked cool bluff? But I digress.
It gets worse. Jeremiah 32:35, Yahweh talking: "They built the high places of Baal in the Valley of the Son of Hinnom, to offer up their sons and daughters to Molech, though I did not command them, nor did it enter into my mind, that they should do this abomination, to cause Judah to sin." Wow. Not only did God not know that sacrifices were going to take place, He couldn't even conceive that the people could have done this! Remember, Zog, this is a mind statement, so take it literally...
Don't bring your Hellenistic, Greek, "Hebrew mind"-killing mechanical exegesis to bear on the Biblical text, Zog. This is GOOD. So, "it never entered into [Yahweh's] mind" that they would perform child sacrifice. Of course, this has happened before, as I said. Its not like "it never entered into his mind" that yellow poppies would spring up on bovine backs or something. Open theists might grant that. But this is like a child stealing money from you thirteen times, and you not even considering or imagining that they could hypothetically do it again!!! In short, this is saying that God does not know possibilities, probablities... whatever you want to call them. Scientia media out.
Secondly, they get giddy and frisky when they talk about the "Hellenization" of the church. The church might have used various Hellenistic categories or words, but hey, so did John (Houston, we have a Logos), so that apparently isn't too big of a deal. I mean, we still translate Bibles today, right? But regardless, the question is, was there a fundamental paradigm shift that completely abandoned Hebrew ways of thought for Greek ways of thought, particularly considering God. And the answer is no. After all, all of the raw data for classical theism's views, as well as some DISTURBINGLY (is there like a Vincent Price font with dripping crimson?) deterministic, predestinarian, future-knowing statements are woven all throughout the "Hebrew writings." Its once again just a matter of association. If the church picks up on a theme that is all throughout the Old Testament, one that Greek thought happens to agree on, and teaches it, is that Hellenism?
For a particularly scrumptious essay that is decimating to open theism's historical claims, check out "The Rabbis and the Claims of Openness Advocates" by Russell Fuller. He goes through Rabbinical and Talmudic sources and not only shows their derision for Greek theology and their claims of absolute foreknowledge, but even lists a bunch of quotes that Arminians would hate as much as open theists, because they don't only talk about foreknowledge, they talk about sovereignty. And not in the cookie cutter sense of the word. In the "I'm running this ship, and my hand determines all things, so bow down and acknowledge me" kinda way.
Which leads us to this point: Open theists are really the only consistent Arminian evangelicals. Molinists try to be, but they fail on two counts. A: Their view of the will ultimately reduces decisions to only a product of nature & circumstances (and, ironically enough, it was the freedom of the will that Molinism was designed to retain), and B: Regardless of the mechanism, they still have God ordaining for His own good purposes, and not merely "seeing", Auschwitz, Pol Pot, and Paris Hilton. So, Molinism's fine with me. You're in the same boat I am, you're just ashamed of your company. Just don't lock me downstairs with the other peasants once we hit the iceberg. Regardless. Open theists are correct when they say that if God knows the future, then the future is foreordained and planned by the All-Wise Creator. However, instead of abandoning their heterodox views on the human will and obtaining a correct view of foreknowledge, they retain their heterodox views on the human will and "add on" heterodox views on foreknowledge. Its like Best Buy, so many good accessories!!! Come in next week during our fantabulous Super Saver Tuesday and get your free "God has toenails" Testa-mints!
So who's right in all of this? Once again, the Reformed. Even though actually, ya' know, it goes back way beyond that. But just for simple polemical purposes, we'll just say the Reformed.
That being said, if you think Calvinism is hogwash (a pox on your house!), and you want to retain the Baal Of Your Own Volition, at least recognize that the Rabbis, the early church, the Eastern Orthodox, the Roman Catholics, the Reformed Protestants, the Arminian Protestants, the kooky Pentecostals, and every leprechaun, dishwasher, satyr, bellhop, bumpkin, and bearded lady in between, have always with one unanimous voice held to the foreknowledge of God. This is perhaps the least disputed item in the history of the church.
The only real group that ever substantially disagreed were the Socinians. Who, by the way, held to Christological and Trinitarian heresies on top of this one that we've been discussing. Is that guilt by assocation? You betcha.
*********************
The traditional doctrine of inspiration in no way "rules out" the use of metaphor, simile, personification, etc. In fact, it darn near requires it. Inspiration entails that God "condescends" and ontologically lowers himself to communicate to His image-bearing, soul-possessing bipeds in their own languages, in words they can understand. And human language is replete with figures of speech. However, open theists treat them as indicative, crystalline statements that fell out of the heavens, the black obelist that we mere monkeys should dance around and touch so that our understanding of God will "evolve".
Open theism will either continue on in its own inconsistencies, or collapse into absurdity under the weight of its own exegetical baggage; either way, as it stands now, it has some serious hermeneutical reparations to fork over.
I'm going to avoid inserting random Scripture verses into this post, not because I am Roman Catholic or Eastern Orthodox, and adhere to some higher or equal authority, but simply because the verses/texts/passages, etc., that both sides appeal to, are already well known to both.
The fundamental issue with open theism is hermeneutical, and a subsidiary issue, the "buttress" of their manifesto, is historical.
Open theists need to find a consistent way of interpreting Scripture. As it stands, they draw an artificial distinction between anthropomorphisms and anthropopathisms. Technically, anthropopathisms (attributing human emotional states to God) are a subset of anthropomorphisms (attributing human characteristics to God), even though anthropomorphisms are practically used nowadays just to talk about God having a body, lips, arms, etc.
Open theists want to have their cake and eat it too. They adopt one set of "rules" for the emotive passages, and a different set of "rules" for the body passages. When God is spoken of as changing his mind, etc., then it is all Sola Scriptura, "Stop corrupting the Scriptures", "Take it literal", yadda yadda. But when it comes to the plain and much more numerous statements about God having a heart, a mouth, nostrils, arms, a body, etc. (and may I emphasize, much more numerous) they equivocate, and hem, and haw, and take the same position that wiser evangelicals (and the historical church) have taken vis a vis the "human states of mind" that are attributed to God: Namely, that all such revelation is God's accomodation of His infinite self to our finite minds. Technically, all revelation is analogical, or anthropomorphic. It is God lisping to us.
No open theist has to date made a convincing argument that upholds the double standard. In fact, the opposite is happening. Clark Pinnock, the Open Guru that is the best known proponent of the movement, actually suggests that God is embodied in his Most Moved Mover. Check out pages 33 & 34 if you don't believe me.
Of course, it gets really tricky when the Psalms attribute wings to God. Well if God's embodied, and we are in the image of God, where did our wings go? Is that where the metaphor of "the Fall" came from? We just dashed to the earth like Icarus, losing our image-reflecting wings? Stuff to think about.
Not to mention the fact that God is often called a fire, a rock, a shield, etc. Does He have multiple bodies? Or are all those just like... Vishnu's avatars or something? Pinnock? Boyd? Sanders? Rice? Anyone?
Okay, let's for a moment just grant this completely arbitrary distinction between anthropomorphisms and anthropopathisms. Let's just accept their mindless irrationale that operates according to the same dignum deo filter that they accuse classical theism of using.
So, here's the caveman version: Mental-emotional attributions GOOD. Body-mouth-wings attributions BAD. Me Tarzan, you Jane!
So, working under those assumptions, how "literal" do open theists want to take various mental-emotional attributions (remember, Zog, these are GOOD.. Un-ga-wa!)?
Genesis 18:20-21, Yahweh talking: "Because the outcry against Sodom and Gomorrah is great and their sin is very grave, I will go down to see whether they have done altogether according to the outcry that has come to me. And if not, I will know."
If taken seriously, this sounds suspiciously like Nancy Drew. God hears an "outcry", presumably from the righteous people on earth, or perhaps from detested angels, who knows. Okay, this sounds bad. He needs to go check out the report and get it confirmed. So he travels there (but that's a body statement, Zog, so BAD, just ignore that part, its anthropomorphic, duh!), and if something's amiss, He'll know, because He'll see for Himself !
Keep in mind that a: this shows God's incomplete knowledge of the present if taken literally. God needs to "see" for Himself what's actually going on down there. Oh wait, it gets worse; b: it shows incomplete knowledge of the past. Because the "outcry" was a response to things, and God is going down to confirm things that have already taken place. "And if not, I will know."
So the hermeneutic of open theism, consistently applied, eviscerates God's knowledge of the future, present, and past. Do you think this God could cut it in Vegas? Would he make the finals of the World Poker Championship, or would that Greg guy with the funky glasses catch him on a wicked cool bluff? But I digress.
It gets worse. Jeremiah 32:35, Yahweh talking: "They built the high places of Baal in the Valley of the Son of Hinnom, to offer up their sons and daughters to Molech, though I did not command them, nor did it enter into my mind, that they should do this abomination, to cause Judah to sin." Wow. Not only did God not know that sacrifices were going to take place, He couldn't even conceive that the people could have done this! Remember, Zog, this is a mind statement, so take it literally...
Don't bring your Hellenistic, Greek, "Hebrew mind"-killing mechanical exegesis to bear on the Biblical text, Zog. This is GOOD. So, "it never entered into [Yahweh's] mind" that they would perform child sacrifice. Of course, this has happened before, as I said. Its not like "it never entered into his mind" that yellow poppies would spring up on bovine backs or something. Open theists might grant that. But this is like a child stealing money from you thirteen times, and you not even considering or imagining that they could hypothetically do it again!!! In short, this is saying that God does not know possibilities, probablities... whatever you want to call them. Scientia media out.
Secondly, they get giddy and frisky when they talk about the "Hellenization" of the church. The church might have used various Hellenistic categories or words, but hey, so did John (Houston, we have a Logos), so that apparently isn't too big of a deal. I mean, we still translate Bibles today, right? But regardless, the question is, was there a fundamental paradigm shift that completely abandoned Hebrew ways of thought for Greek ways of thought, particularly considering God. And the answer is no. After all, all of the raw data for classical theism's views, as well as some DISTURBINGLY (is there like a Vincent Price font with dripping crimson?) deterministic, predestinarian, future-knowing statements are woven all throughout the "Hebrew writings." Its once again just a matter of association. If the church picks up on a theme that is all throughout the Old Testament, one that Greek thought happens to agree on, and teaches it, is that Hellenism?
For a particularly scrumptious essay that is decimating to open theism's historical claims, check out "The Rabbis and the Claims of Openness Advocates" by Russell Fuller. He goes through Rabbinical and Talmudic sources and not only shows their derision for Greek theology and their claims of absolute foreknowledge, but even lists a bunch of quotes that Arminians would hate as much as open theists, because they don't only talk about foreknowledge, they talk about sovereignty. And not in the cookie cutter sense of the word. In the "I'm running this ship, and my hand determines all things, so bow down and acknowledge me" kinda way.
Which leads us to this point: Open theists are really the only consistent Arminian evangelicals. Molinists try to be, but they fail on two counts. A: Their view of the will ultimately reduces decisions to only a product of nature & circumstances (and, ironically enough, it was the freedom of the will that Molinism was designed to retain), and B: Regardless of the mechanism, they still have God ordaining for His own good purposes, and not merely "seeing", Auschwitz, Pol Pot, and Paris Hilton. So, Molinism's fine with me. You're in the same boat I am, you're just ashamed of your company. Just don't lock me downstairs with the other peasants once we hit the iceberg. Regardless. Open theists are correct when they say that if God knows the future, then the future is foreordained and planned by the All-Wise Creator. However, instead of abandoning their heterodox views on the human will and obtaining a correct view of foreknowledge, they retain their heterodox views on the human will and "add on" heterodox views on foreknowledge. Its like Best Buy, so many good accessories!!! Come in next week during our fantabulous Super Saver Tuesday and get your free "God has toenails" Testa-mints!
So who's right in all of this? Once again, the Reformed. Even though actually, ya' know, it goes back way beyond that. But just for simple polemical purposes, we'll just say the Reformed.
That being said, if you think Calvinism is hogwash (a pox on your house!), and you want to retain the Baal Of Your Own Volition, at least recognize that the Rabbis, the early church, the Eastern Orthodox, the Roman Catholics, the Reformed Protestants, the Arminian Protestants, the kooky Pentecostals, and every leprechaun, dishwasher, satyr, bellhop, bumpkin, and bearded lady in between, have always with one unanimous voice held to the foreknowledge of God. This is perhaps the least disputed item in the history of the church.
The only real group that ever substantially disagreed were the Socinians. Who, by the way, held to Christological and Trinitarian heresies on top of this one that we've been discussing. Is that guilt by assocation? You betcha.
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