Question about God's Sovereignty...

[Scott Shahan]

If God is Sovereign, then He can change His mind. Is that right?

 

[No Longer A Libertine]

No, in His sovereignty the preordained decision making is in no need of tweaking away from His already perfect choices.

 

[AV1611]

If God is Sovereign, then He can change His mind. Is that right?

Absolutely not.

Act 15:18 "Known unto God are all his works from the beginning of the world."

 

[S. Spence]

If God is Sovereign, then He can change His mind. Is that right

?

No, but sometimes from mans' point of view it may appear that God has changed His Mind, this is simply because we are not privy to the eternal decree of God. A good example of this is seen in the book of Jonah.

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. (esv)

 

[puritan lad]

God has no need to change his mind. His ways are already perfect.

I had an interesting discussion with an Arminian over this very issue. He argued that God did change His mind. I asked Him if God "foreknew" that He would change His mind. (That Arminian foreknowledge is always a problem for them). If so, then He never really changed it.

 

[Scott Shahan]

That is helpful, I was talking to a Methodist pastor friend of mine and he was arguing this question with me. Their way of thinking and believing is a little scary. His denomination doesn't hold to the Scripture as being inerrant. So when I mention Hebrews 13:8, that seems to fall on deaf ears. Maybe when I am talking to these liberals I feel like I am

 

[Ravens]

Its just taking one divine attribute and viewing it in isolation from everything else, in a way that doesn't take into account God's simplicity. That same line of argumentation (and the spirit in which it is made) could just as easily say, "If God is sovereign...

then He could lie..."
then He could change into a box of french fries..."
then He could choose to be evil..."
then He can send those for whom Christ died to hell..."
then He is free to be weak and manipulable..."

There are wiser minds on the board, but in essence, the way I look at it, God's attributes are only "separable" from a human point of view. You can't parse Him. God is God. God isn't a conglomeration of different attributes. And just as He is sovereign, He also is truth, and righteousness, and rational, and omniscient, and perfect. But, to explain it in human language, His sovereignty is rational and holy, not because it has outward restrictions, but because He is rational, and because He is holy. All of his attributes must be understood in the context of each other.

So to say that "If God is sovereign, He could change His mind" is really just saying, "If God is sovereign, He could choose not be the omniscient God who freely decrees all things...", which is just another way of saying, "If God is sovereign, He could choose not to be God."

Which is ludicrous, and the conversation really shouldn't go past that.

 

[Scott Shahan]

Good points;

I am talking to a Lutheran and a Methodist about this and they think that calvinists are cocky and arrogant. They say that when I am talking about the Sovereignty of God I am talking about the "hidden God" and that I should just stick to what the scripture says about the revealed God.

 

[Scott Shahan]

I am talking to a friend that goes to a LCMS school in Indiana, Fort Wayne. The LCMS does not think that theology starts with the Sovereignty of God. Doesn't theology start with Gen 1? In the beginning God!! It seems like they just want to camp out in the Gospels and pay no attention to anything else. Theology starts with Jesus and the Gospels for them.

 

[Ravens]

Divine sovereignty is as major a theme of John's gospel as is belief and the Deity of Christ. So, they are still in quite a pickel.

 

[Scott Shahan]

I am trying to understand were my friend is coming from, I don't think I am understanding his theology, Here is something he said,

Scott,
"what are you actually trying to say... Isaiah believed in Christ. Job believed in Christ. John, Luke, and Paul believed in Christ. That is how they knew God. They didn't wonder about other things. In fact, Job is harshly reprimanded for wondering about the hidden things. God rebukes him. The whole OT testifies of Christ, not some abstraction of this "sovereign God". Don't get me wrong, this Sovereign God does exist, and He is God, but He has revealed Himself AS Christ."

In theology where is the starting point at? Most systematics start with God as Creator. Doesn't theology start here?? or am I missing something? It seems that when he is speaking to me the primary focus is on the 2nd person of the Trinity and that is where the focus should always be. For him it seems that it isn't God the Father in the OT but it is Jesus in the OT. Isn't the Holy Spirit also in the OT?? I do not get how the Lutherans think, though I am trying to understand.

 

[Ravens]

and the better Josh

Seriously man, what are you puttin' in those stogies?

 

[Poimen]

Yes the Bible begins with "In the beginning God..." But the fact that He created all things by the power of His Word clearly implies if not explicitly asserts that God is sovereign (since He needed no one's help to accomplish His will).

"And God said..." Is not the divine fiat of creation a clear demonstration of His sovereignty?

 

[Theoretical]

That is helpful, I was talking to a Methodist pastor friend of mine and he was arguing this question with me. Their way of thinking and believing is a little scary. His denomination doesn't hold to the Scripture as being inerrant. So when I mention Hebrews 13:8, that seems to fall on deaf ears. Maybe when I am talking to these liberals I feel like I am

Speaking as one raised in the wonderful UMC, to even establish a dialogue with theological liberals you HAVE to establish inerrancy. At least with our evangelical friends, we can usually force them (after emphasizing Sola Scriptura) to chew on a Scripture they don't like. Liberals can just snip it out of Scripture.

Without inerrancy, Christianity it is a waste of time fit solely for the most pathetic of navel-gazing philosophers.

 

[Theoretical]

6+ years of having to practice Chirstian apologetics at my parents' church, rather than actually learning from and growing under the Church, makes me very jaded against liberals. I can much better dialogue with them than I used to do, but their playbook is so intellectually cowardly sometimes it is sickening.

 

[Scott Shahan]

So he's gone from asking silly declarations (If God is so sovereign, he can _____), to saying, in essence, that the only way in which God has revealed Himself is in Christ? Is this guy a modalist? God is 3 persons, One God. All three are not manifested at different times but coexist at all times. I say don't cast your pearls before swine. He cannot get around the Sovereignty of God in Scripture, without denying it. Christ Himself talks about it all throughout the gospel of John, as both I and the better Josh have previously noted. There's one major problem with his whole focus. He seems to be saying that the truth and fact of God's sovereignty is a hidden thing. I believe Scripture has made it abundantly disclosed, revealed, clear, open, yada yada yada.

That does seem to be what he is saying, "the only way in which God has revealed Himself is in Christ". It seems that for the "lutheran" if you are going to talk about "God" you will be strictly talking about Jesus and Jesus only, it seems as if there is no regaurd whatsoever for the other 2 persons of the Trinity. It does sound a lot like Modalism. Maybe I don't even know how to talk about God. Who is the Creator? God, God who? God the Father.........no Jesus is the Creator... How do you talk about the distictions of the Trinity??? One God, three persons, how do you talk about each of the three persons, at the same time? And if one of the persons of the Trinity is emphesised more so then the others is that an unbalanced view of God?

 

[Contra_Mundum]

Focusing on Christ is fine, ...so long as we remember he came to reveal the Father (or so he said!). His Spirit, which Christ claimed to be sending to us, is supposed to lead us into ALL truth, presumably including truth about the Holy Spirit himself.

People pitting one part of divine revelation against another ... sad. Working out the connections and the harmony--that's Systematic Theology, brother!

 

[Ivan]

Focusing on Christ is fine, ...so long as we remember he came to reveal the Father (or so he said!). His Spirit, which Christ claimed to be sending to us, is supposed to lead us into ALL truth, presumably including truth about the Holy Spirit himself.

People pitting one part of divine revelation against another ... sad. Working out the connections and the harmony--that's Systematic Theology, brother!