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Blue155
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So, quoting verses is profaning the Lord’s name, when the Lord’s name is specifically mentioned in a verse? By your logic, God’s word profanes His name then. Man alive…you cannot be serious…wow…adios!
Is Anything Not Predestinated by God?
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You and I are not the only one's involved in our conversation. I am responding to clarify for you and others where I think you are mistaken. Whether you choose to respond to any post to you, is up to.
I did not claim that if the verse is context cannot support a broader theological truth. I said "And yes, that is true, (i.e. God cannot lie to Balak, nor repent for Balak) without the verse being forced to infer that God is unable to ever change His mind..."
In other words, i was merely pointing out that the verse you are citing to prove God cannot really change His mind, allows for a different sense in context, and is therefore disqualified as a proof text for your claim.
I agree. A statement made about God in a particular situation does often state what is also a general attribute of God's character. But as you are also conceding, this is not always true.
Psa 18:25 With the merciful thou wilt shew thyself merciful; with an upright man thou wilt shew thyself upright;
Psa 18:26 With the pure thou wilt shew thyself pure; and with the froward ('iQeSh, twisted/perverse) thou wilt shew thyself froward ('iQeSh).
But God is not actually froward in character.
It is true that scripture elsewhere says, Tit. 1:2 "God, who cannot lie. " and in that context it means God can never lie. However, it does not say anywhere, "God who cannot repent/change His mind." So, one would be going beyond scripture to extend the second clause beyond its context into a general truth about God, simply because the first clause happens to coincide with a general truth about God that is stated in scripture in a different context.
Because this is a common reality that one clause might be contextual because absolute, and another might just be contextual.
If some rascal tries to bribe me to kill and rob a widow, I could say "I am not a criminal that I would rob, nor a villain that I would kill." That does not mean I would never kill someone in another situation to defend a life, even though I might believe I would never stoop to robbing someone in any circumstance. I am just saying that in this case I will not rob or steal.
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I was not saying that the meaning of NaKhaM is limited to "change due to bribery." What I was saying was that the context is addressing a particular case of bribery, so it is a legitimate inference to make that the clauses relate to this particular case, and are not necessarily universal.Hence the text does not prove your opinion that God does not change His mind due to changing circumstances. You have not presented any texts that prove your case. So, there is no reason for you to claim your opinion should be embraced by all Bible believing Christians. Your only reason for me agreeing with you is that i should choose the same teachers (men) whom you have chosen. That would be to submit to heresy: choosing teachers rather than the Word and Christ's anointing in me.
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I did not say "And yes, that is true, without the verse being forced to infer that God is unable to ever change His mind, as the platonic doctrine of immutability presupposes and classical Jewish or Christians impose that doctrine onto the verse."
I said, "And yes, that is true, without the verse being forced to infer that God is unable to ever change His mind, as the platonic doctrine of immutability presupposes and Christians who hold to that doctrine impose onto the verse."
Google AI, what is classical theology?
- Classical theology refers to the historic, orthodox understanding of God and doctrine, particularly within Christianity, rooted in Greek philosophy (Plato, Aristotle) and developed by Church Fathers (Augustine) and medieval thinkers (Aquinas). It describes God as transcendent, immutable (unchanging), impassible (incapable of suffering), supremely powerful (omnipotent), all-knowing (omniscient), and perfectly simple (essence=existence), distinct from creation. This tradition emphasizes God's self-sufficiency (aseity) and perfect being, serving as a bedrock for major faiths like Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, though it faces modern critiques for being seemingly distant.
Google AI, does classical Christian theology deny that God can change His mind? -
Yes, classical Christian theology denies that God can change His mind. This is rooted in the doctrine of divine immutability, which asserts that God is unchanging in His essence, character, attributes, and eternal purposes.
Core Theological Principles
- Immutability: God is perfect, and any change would necessarily be a change for the better (implying prior imperfection) or for the worse (implying a decline), both of which are impossible for a perfect being. God is consistently described in scripture as the "Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shadow" (James 1:17) and declaring "I, the Lord, do not change" (Malachi 3:6).
- Omniscience: God possesses perfect, exhaustive, and eternal knowledge, knowing the end from the beginning (Isaiah 46:10). He does not acquire new knowledge over time, which would be necessary to "change His mind" in the human sense.
- Sovereignty and Eternal Decree: God works all things according to the counsel of His own will, and His plans cannot be frustrated or altered by external circumstances. His purposes are fixed from eternity, ensuring the reliability of His promises and the stability of human hope (Hebrews 6:17-18).
- Impassibility: A related classical doctrine is that God is impassible, meaning He is not subject to emotional flux or external influences in a way that would compromise His divine nature.
But you just said God has changing action. You said, "It (i.e. immutability) does not deny responsive action within time."
Again you are equivocating, this time with the word unchanging. You are saying God responds to man's actions, but only anthropopathically, since He does not really change what He intended to do to doing something else, but merely speaks to us as if our choices will affect His response.
An action that was intended from eternity past is not changing or responsive, in any real sense, to what man does.
To summarise, you are disqualifying from the body of Christ people who do not bow to the doctrine of your chosen teachers, who are mere men, when their teaching is nowhere explicitly taught in scripture, and the proof-texts they use to prove their case do not prove their case.
cf. 1 Cor. 11 - A person who divides the body of Christ, the Word of God judges to be a schismatic. A person who chooses men as teachers over the Holy Spirit, the Word of God identifies you as a heretic. The person failing to discern the whole body of Christ, the universal heterodox church, takes communion unworthily and should beware lest they be disciplined with sickness or death unless they repent.
First time I have ever been intimated to be a heretic. I guess I’ve lived a charmed life to have escaped that moniker for so many decades.
That should say, "I did not claim that the verse in context cannot support a broader theological truth. I said "And yes, that is true, (i.e. God cannot lie to Balak, nor repent for Balak) without the verse being forced to infer that God is unable to ever change His mind..."
Heyyy. God is faithful to those who has chosen. He is free to banish some onigiri monster named "who cares" from doesn't exist.
You've been 404d. Dada dadadada dink dink
You've been 404d. Dada dadadada dink dink
That bit of information could save you a lot of grief then, if you can understand 1 Cor. 1 and 11.
I'm called that a lot by people who do not understand what the Bible means by heresy.
You're fairly new here, so you may not have learned how this forum works. Unless you are posting immediately after the opening post in a thread, use the "REPLY" button at lower right. Otherwise, nobody knows who you're addressing, and your comments are little more than a clanging cymbal.
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Blue155
Guest
@John146 @PaulThomson @GWH do any of you gentlemen have a biblical answer of how to address this issue? https://christianchat.com/bible-dis...destinated-by-god.221797/page-13#post-5656449
This is not something typically asked by an atheist though.
This is something that is asked by a Christian who has debated Calvinists and maybe now he’s an atheist.
Look, saying that God is not allowed to lie is a double-entendre and I'm just being an eed-jit for a moment, not an extended diatribe on why Baal needs to burn more firewood to keep telling stories about the God of a Baal. But let me clarify this point I make. God does not allow himself to lie, therefore His Decree stands like that of Cyrus, irrevocably. This is why people do not say "lies made known to us by God" but better still "His promise". I have never heard of Balak, that's not valid scripturally because it doesn't utter such a word for someone's Baal, and God will not be proved a liar when he breaks promises, because it is He who utters the Decree, not he who cannot move a mountain. God cannot make something too heavy for himself to move, not even a mountaintop thrown into the sea.
The "all" that God knows is all that is real. Past history is real and it will not change. The present is real and cannot be other that what it is. The future is not yet real, so is as yet undefined. Our plans for the future are real, but the planned things themselves are not yet real. We may succeed in bringing them to fruition, or we might not. Because God is more powerful that any creation, being called almighty, He is able to guarantee that His plans for the future will come to pass, if He continues to want them to come to pass. I do not see any indication in scripture that God knows what is unreal as being real. Although, Scripture does say that God calls some things that are not as though they are. But scripture does not say, "God calls things that are not because they are. " Nor do I see any evidence in scripture that God has planned everything that will be in the future.
So the problem the atheists you describe have is one created for them by theologians who have imposed onto the Bible a notion of the nature of omniscience that does not accurately correspond to what God considers the nature of omniscience to be. The atheists you describe are objecting to a straw man set up by fallible humans who are speculating on the nature of God and are going beyond the limits of what scripture actually reveals. .
I believe we are souls called to commune with God.