Open Theism
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Ignorance of Theology does not Equal a Dilemma:
All you're doing now is showing your ignorance of the trinity, and your ignorance of the nature of Christ.
This was all sorted about 1600 years ago at the Council of Constantinople by the early church fathers.
Equivocation:
You are equivocating on entirely different things.
All of Open Theism is created out of thin air, ad hoc, by equivocating on various terms and logical categories.
The entire doctrine is nothing more than a huge logical fallacy.
This is why serious theologians seldom even discuss Open Theism... because it's so silly that virtually no one has ever believed it.
Here you are equivocating on the term "God."
You are simply, and ignorantly, referring to everything as God.
You are failing to recognize that Christ is not the same as the entire Godhead, and that Christ when "in human form" was not the same as Christ "in eternal form".
There are all kinds of distinctions here, some subtle and some quite obvious, and you are simply, and ignorantly, just choosing to ignore simple linguistic distinctions and choosing to ignore centuries of theological study and understanding.
The rest of Christendom, everyone, everywhere... Catholics and Protestants... have all understood these things for centuries.
It's not our fault if Open Theists cannot read.
...
Yea its a silly debate havent we got anything better go discuss...or maybe we can ask God. Nothing is impossible or too hard for Him.
JEsus would refer to himself as the son of man when he was with unbelieving men and the son of God when he showed others that he was the Christ.
Without faith, its impossible to please God. If we dont believe He is who He says He is, miracles wont happen. We cant even enter into the promised land or Heaven if we dont even believe God has prepared it for us!
JEsus would refer to himself as the son of man when he was with unbelieving men and the son of God when he showed others that he was the Christ.
Without faith, its impossible to please God. If we dont believe He is who He says He is, miracles wont happen. We cant even enter into the promised land or Heaven if we dont even believe God has prepared it for us!
The Bible says you cannot separate a man from his foolishness...
even if you grind him to powder with a mortar and pestle.
I was trying to be extremely polite and cordial with our new member until he made it obvious he was simply going to argue, indefinitely, in the face of all logic, scripture, and historical orthodoxy.
He came here solely to fight, not to discuss or learn... so it's time to stop bending over backwards to spare his feelings.
We need to get to the point.
Open Theists are ignorant of theology, ignorant of history, ignorant of simple language and grammar, and ignorant of logic.
They simply come to scripture with a presupposition, just like a cult would do, and then intentionally misread and misrepresent every simple thing in scripture.
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I’m kinda new here also but nearing three score and ten years. I was really surprised by the many posts arguing about issues I’ve long thought were settled orthodox issues. I suppose it is a reflection of the times we live in.
Certainly God has Knowledge of future thigs thus the term foreknowledge. One of those things is knowing that those who are found in Christ will be conformed to the image of His Son.
You do know that it was Christ who created all things.
So answer the question: Will God remember your sins as He looks upon you in eternity? Does sin enter the mind of God?
In the Old Testament sins were paid for with a sacrifice of blood. The preferred sacrifice was a unblemished lamb if the person could afford it. A smaller animal or bird could be used if the person couldn't afford it. This was done once a year.
Jesus became the Unblemished Lamb of God sacrificing himself for all who would accept the grace through faith in Jesus.
'those He foreknew He also predestined'
if He knew me before the creation of the world ((Ephesians 1:4-5, e.g)) then He had knowledge of me, personally, before an infinite number of human 'free-will' choices, presumably with indeterminate outcomes, had been made that directly affected in a binary way whether i would ever be born and be who i am today. certain not ambiguous knowledge. and He also predestined me -- that's knowledge that you were saying earlier 'doesn't exist' prior to my being born and living 40 odd years, isn't it? so to foreknow me He knows future things in a scope beyond merely knowing a set of events in a probability space.
what we're talking about is very similar to rolling dice or flipping a coin, the two archetypal examples of probability - the topic of open theism is essentially a math question: supposing man has free will, in a libertarian sense, i.e. any human can choose without any coercion what path to take in any number of events. this is congruous to rolling a fair die - any number {1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6} may result, and all are equally likely, and it is impossible to predict what the outcome of a die roll will be, even if you know with 100% accuracy the history of all previous dice being rolled, each time a die is rolled it is independent of the past.
what open theism states is that mankind's free will is like rolling dice. it presumes man's will is libertarian; it is uncoerced. in the analogy, this is equivalent to saying God does not load the dice, forcing a roll of 3 or whatever. the die roll cannot be predicted and 'knowledge' of the result does not exist until after it has been rolled. this is how the theology can state, 'God knows all that is possible to know' or 'God has all knowledge that exists' -- side-skirting the difficulty of omniscience by carefully defining the meaning of 'knowledge.' in this view, God's omniscience is limited to Him knowing the possibilities of the die roll outcome, because that is all the knowledge an open theist considers to exist. they say, God knows {1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6} but He does not know 'X' where X = the outcome of the die roll, because X doesn't exist before we roll the dice.
we can see this in how people who hold this view explain verses like Romans 8:29-30 -- they say, 'foreknowledge' is that God knew any particular person has this probability space regarding Christ: {believe, disbelieve}, and 'predestined' is that God determined an IF/THEN algorithm such that IF (believe = TRUE) THEN (saved) ELSEIF (believe = FALSE) THEN (condemned). and that, to an open theist, is the limit of God's predestination and foreknowledge. it is never personal or specific predestination or foreknowledge, and they explain that it cannot be because it is dependent on libertarian free-will choices with completely unknowable outcomes, unknowable even for God. they say, God is as omniscient as He possibly can be, but the existence of human free agency necessarily limits the scope of His omniscience.
this is congruous to rolling our dice, again. let X = the outcome of a fair 6-sided die roll. what open theism is saying is that God's foreknowledge is {1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6}, and God's predestination is something like IF X = 3 THEN GOTO heaven.
i know, long, complex post, post. so i'll stop for now ((before i start talking about quantum physics -- because seriously, same topic)) with this:
here's a wrench to throw into open theism's gears
The lot is cast into the lap,
but its every decision is from the LORD.
(Proverbs 16:33)
as always, thanks for reading my drivel
It is in total contradiction to the scriptures. There is absolutely no limit on the power of God!!
2 Biblical concepts.
God created the heavens and earth!!
God knew the end from the beginning.
Evidence of the latter is found in various places.
Total eclipses going from east to west across a country has condemned that country to fall from prominent status to third world status. He set the moon in orbit with his knowledge of the future.
Second in the Torah there are codes hidden. Here is a text I have for posting.
________
The books I have are:
The Bible Code
263 pages
Bible Code II the Countdown
291 pages
Both by Michael Drosnin
Bible Prophecy Proved Through The Mysterious Bible Codes
192 pages
By Grant R. Jeffrey
In these books the awesome foreknowledge of God is proven. A Bible Code is found in the Old Testament by starting with an original language text starting with a letter and using an interval counting forwards or backwards finding a message. In the Torah 20th century mens names with birth and death dates were found. In 2 messianic scriptures the name of Jesus with "it is he" and the 11 names of his disciples with the name of the one replacing Judas listed. Only 11 because 2 had the same name. Many other codes were found.
God caused the authors of those books write them with those codes embedded. Thus proving they were authored by God.
The first codes were found by rabbis looking at the beginning oThe books I have are:
The Bible Code
263 pages
Bible Code II the Countdown
291 pages
Both by Michael Drosnin
Bible Prophecy Proved Through The Mysterious Bible Codes
192 pages
By Grant R. Jeffrey
In these books the awesome foreknowledge of God is proven. A Bible Code is found in the Old Testament by starting with an original language text starting with a letter and using an interval counting forwards or backwards finding a message. In the Torah 20th century mens names with birth and death dates were found. In 2 messianic scriptures the name of Jesus with "it is he" and the 11 names of his disciples with the name of the one replacing Judas listed. Only 11 because 2 had the same name. Many other codes were found.
God caused the authors of those books write them with those codes embedded. Thus proving they were authored by God.
The first codes were found by rabbis looking at the beginning of the 5 books of the Torah. 4 had one word while the fifth had a different word. This caused the Israeli Institute similar to MIT in the US to have some some programing students create a software program to search the books of the Old Testament for more codes book by book. They released the program for anyone who wanted it. Thus the above books about the codes were created. f the 5 books of the Torah. 4 had one word while the fifth had a different word. This caused the Israeli Institute similar to MIT in the US to have some some programing students create a software program to search the books of the Old Testament for more codes book by book. They released the program for anyone who wanted it. Thus the above books about the codes were created.
Open theism is consistent arminianism.
Free will = Open theism
Absolute foreknowledge = Calvinism.
To be blunt and crude about it. Because if God knew how everything was going to play out and still decided to create the universe, then everything is predetermined anyway, there is only an ILLUSION of choice. The choice is only real 'in time'.
(Many free will believers also believe in OSAS, which is ironic, if you can will your way in, you should be able to will your way out)
Free will = Open theism
Absolute foreknowledge = Calvinism.
To be blunt and crude about it. Because if God knew how everything was going to play out and still decided to create the universe, then everything is predetermined anyway, there is only an ILLUSION of choice. The choice is only real 'in time'.
(Many free will believers also believe in OSAS, which is ironic, if you can will your way in, you should be able to will your way out)
'those He foreknew He also predestined'
if He knew me before the creation of the world ((Ephesians 1:4-5, e.g)) then He had knowledge of me, personally, before an infinite number of human 'free-will' choices, presumably with indeterminate outcomes, had been made that directly affected in a binary way whether i would ever be born and be who i am today. certain not ambiguous knowledge. and He also predestined me -- that's knowledge that you were saying earlier 'doesn't exist' prior to my being born and living 40 odd years, isn't it? so to foreknow me He knows future things in a scope beyond merely knowing a set of events in a probability space.
what we're talking about is very similar to rolling dice or flipping a coin, the two archetypal examples of probability - the topic of open theism is essentially a math question: supposing man has free will, in a libertarian sense, i.e. any human can choose without any coercion what path to take in any number of events. this is congruous to rolling a fair die - any number {1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6} may result, and all are equally likely, and it is impossible to predict what the outcome of a die roll will be, even if you know with 100% accuracy the history of all previous dice being rolled, each time a die is rolled it is independent of the past.
what open theism states is that mankind's free will is like rolling dice. it presumes man's will is libertarian; it is uncoerced. in the analogy, this is equivalent to saying God does not load the dice, forcing a roll of 3 or whatever. the die roll cannot be predicted and 'knowledge' of the result does not exist until after it has been rolled. this is how the theology can state, 'God knows all that is possible to know' or 'God has all knowledge that exists' -- side-skirting the difficulty of omniscience by carefully defining the meaning of 'knowledge.' in this view, God's omniscience is limited to Him knowing the possibilities of the die roll outcome, because that is all the knowledge an open theist considers to exist. they say, God knows {1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6} but He does not know 'X' where X = the outcome of the die roll, because X doesn't exist before we roll the dice.
we can see this in how people who hold this view explain verses like Romans 8:29-30 -- they say, 'foreknowledge' is that God knew any particular person has this probability space regarding Christ: {believe, disbelieve}, and 'predestined' is that God determined an IF/THEN algorithm such that IF (believe = TRUE) THEN (saved) ELSEIF (believe = FALSE) THEN (condemned). and that, to an open theist, is the limit of God's predestination and foreknowledge. it is never personal or specific predestination or foreknowledge, and they explain that it cannot be because it is dependent on libertarian free-will choices with completely unknowable outcomes, unknowable even for God. they say, God is as omniscient as He possibly can be, but the existence of human free agency necessarily limits the scope of His omniscience.
this is congruous to rolling our dice, again. let X = the outcome of a fair 6-sided die roll. what open theism is saying is that God's foreknowledge is {1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6}, and God's predestination is something like IF X = 3 THEN GOTO heaven.
i know, long, complex post, post. so i'll stop for now ((before i start talking about quantum physics -- because seriously, same topic)) with this:
here's a wrench to throw into open theism's gears
The lot is cast into the lap, but its every decision is from the LORD.(Proverbs 16:33)
as always, thanks for reading my drivel
I read your drivel.
That may be what open theists believe, but that’s not what I believe.
First off, you and I read Ephesians 1 differently. I believe the context is Christ and the spiritual blessings in the heavenly places that are found in Christ. That’s what God had chose before the foundation of the world, not specific individuals that would be found in Christ. The word “according” takes us back to the previous statement. Calvinists like to make the context “us” instead of “Christ”.
As to God’s foreknowledge, I believe Scripture in Galatians 4:9 when it says, But now, after that ye have known God, or rather are known of God...now we are known of God? When does God know you? According to Scripture, at salvation through the Holy Spirit.
2 Timothy 2:19 Nevertheless, the foundation of God standeth sure, having this seal, the Lord knoweth them that are his...
How does God know those that are His? By His seal which is His
Holy Spirit. When does one get sealed? When does one receive the Holy Spirit?
Ephesians 1:13 In whom he also trusted, after ye heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation: in who also after ye believed, ye were sealed with that Holy Spirit of promise.
I hear, I believe, I am sealed by the Holy Spirit. God knows me. Now that God has knowledge of me, He has predestined me for a future event. He knows me before that future event occurs (foreknowledge). What is that future event? The redemption of our bodies, the adoption. This is when we are conformed in the image of Christ.
Comparing Scripture with Scripture...
'those He foreknew He also predestined'
if He knew me before the creation of the world ((Ephesians 1:4-5, e.g)) then He had knowledge of me, personally, before an infinite number of human 'free-will' choices, presumably with indeterminate outcomes, had been made that directly affected in a binary way whether i would ever be born and be who i am today. certain not ambiguous knowledge. and He also predestined me -- that's knowledge that you were saying earlier 'doesn't exist' prior to my being born and living 40 odd years, isn't it? so to foreknow me He knows future things in a scope beyond merely knowing a set of events in a probability space.
what we're talking about is very similar to rolling dice or flipping a coin, the two archetypal examples of probability - the topic of open theism is essentially a math question: supposing man has free will, in a libertarian sense, i.e. any human can choose without any coercion what path to take in any number of events. this is congruous to rolling a fair die - any number {1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6} may result, and all are equally likely, and it is impossible to predict what the outcome of a die roll will be, even if you know with 100% accuracy the history of all previous dice being rolled, each time a die is rolled it is independent of the past.
what open theism states is that mankind's free will is like rolling dice. it presumes man's will is libertarian; it is uncoerced. in the analogy, this is equivalent to saying God does not load the dice, forcing a roll of 3 or whatever. the die roll cannot be predicted and 'knowledge' of the result does not exist until after it has been rolled. this is how the theology can state, 'God knows all that is possible to know' or 'God has all knowledge that exists' -- side-skirting the difficulty of omniscience by carefully defining the meaning of 'knowledge.' in this view, God's omniscience is limited to Him knowing the possibilities of the die roll outcome, because that is all the knowledge an open theist considers to exist. they say, God knows {1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6} but He does not know 'X' where X = the outcome of the die roll, because X doesn't exist before we roll the dice.
we can see this in how people who hold this view explain verses like Romans 8:29-30 -- they say, 'foreknowledge' is that God knew any particular person has this probability space regarding Christ: {believe, disbelieve}, and 'predestined' is that God determined an IF/THEN algorithm such that IF (believe = TRUE) THEN (saved) ELSEIF (believe = FALSE) THEN (condemned). and that, to an open theist, is the limit of God's predestination and foreknowledge. it is never personal or specific predestination or foreknowledge, and they explain that it cannot be because it is dependent on libertarian free-will choices with completely unknowable outcomes, unknowable even for God. they say, God is as omniscient as He possibly can be, but the existence of human free agency necessarily limits the scope of His omniscience.
this is congruous to rolling our dice, again. let X = the outcome of a fair 6-sided die roll. what open theism is saying is that God's foreknowledge is {1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6}, and God's predestination is something like IF X = 3 THEN GOTO heaven.
i know, long, complex post, post. so i'll stop for now ((before i start talking about quantum physics -- because seriously, same topic)) with this:
here's a wrench to throw into open theism's gears
The lot is cast into the lap, but its every decision is from the LORD.(Proverbs 16:33)
as always, thanks for reading my drivel
Seems like a straight forward analysis of, what should have already been obvious.
E
eternally-gratefull
Guest
I can only think of 2 possibilities
1. We are all robots, so we will all do exactly what god wants, thus he knows the outcome because he holds the strings
2. He is all knowing , he knows the future as well as the past, nothing will suprise him because he already knows.
Prophecy are future events that God has ordained to occur. Nothing man or Satan can stop it. God has declared these things to take place in the future. Are all future events prophecy?
E
eternally-gratefull
Guest
Amen
When god says he will no longer remember it means he will no longer hold us accountable for those sins, because he has redeemed us of those sins, so instead of giving us what we deserve, he gives us what we do not deserve, grace
E
eternally-gratefull
Guest
I can chose not to remember things, it does not mean they do not happen, it just means i chose to forget.
God is greater than me, he can put them out of his mind forever,
I think that when one strains to truely understand God, then they are in a quandary.
Without “faith,” it is impossible to please Him.
He shares enough information that we can make a choice as to whether we believe He is who He says He is, or not.
One hears the gospel and says, “I hear what you say, I understand the message, and I believe it to be true,” and is saved.
The other says, “I hear what you say, I understand the message, and I don’t believe it’s true,” and is not saved.
God knowing each decision through His foreknowledge can declare each predestined.
There are those that say since God made them, it’s His fault for each choice, and I hear you. But to avoid that this, a silly thing that insinuates, “God don’t know everything,” seems to have been invented to “get God off the hook,” as one writer aptly put it.
I think this is where the faith part comes in, I serve a great God who is bigger than any thought I have of Him. I would rather be judged by Him than by any man who ever existed. His Love and justice are perfect, BECAUSE He has perfect, not limited, knowledge.
Without “faith,” it is impossible to please Him.
He shares enough information that we can make a choice as to whether we believe He is who He says He is, or not.
One hears the gospel and says, “I hear what you say, I understand the message, and I believe it to be true,” and is saved.
The other says, “I hear what you say, I understand the message, and I don’t believe it’s true,” and is not saved.
God knowing each decision through His foreknowledge can declare each predestined.
There are those that say since God made them, it’s His fault for each choice, and I hear you. But to avoid that this, a silly thing that insinuates, “God don’t know everything,” seems to have been invented to “get God off the hook,” as one writer aptly put it.
I think this is where the faith part comes in, I serve a great God who is bigger than any thought I have of Him. I would rather be judged by Him than by any man who ever existed. His Love and justice are perfect, BECAUSE He has perfect, not limited, knowledge.
E
eternally-gratefull
Guest
Thats one option
The other option is God looked and saw reality, that most would reject hm, so he had a few choices.
Not create any at all,
Prevent the unbelievers from ever being born
Allow creation to procede, man to fall and make a way to redeem them, knowing many will nver recieve him but many will, so for his love of them he allows things,