...with these Open Theism verses. (Part 1)
From https://opentheism.org/verses
33 CATEGORIES OF TYPES OF OPEN THEISM VERSES with all 590+ indicating that the future is not settled but open. These show that...
1 - God Hopes His Prophecies of Judgment will Fail so that reconciliation with even more people may succeed, and only an open future enables God to hope anything at all, and especially, for the following...
God said to the wicked, "You shall surely die", but repent, so that you will "not die" Ezek. 33:14-15; Judah should repent so that God "may repent [not of sin, of course, but] concerning the calamity which I purpose to bring" Jer. 26:3; God's people should repent so that "then the Lord will repent concerning the doom that He has pronounced against you" Jer. 26:13; "I will judge you," God says, so "repent," because "why should you die"? Ezek. 18:30-31; when God speaks "concerning a nation... to destroy it, if that nation against whom I have spoken turns from its evil, I will repent of the disaster that I thought to bring upon it" Jer. 18:7-8 (this is God's interpretation of this Potter and Clay passage. However, many rejected God's warning by elevating prophecy above God Himself Jer. 18:18; yet God affirmed the inverse); when God speaks concerning "a kingdom to build and to plant it, if it does evil in My sight so that it does not obey My voice, then I will repent concerning the good with which I said I would benefit it" Jer. 18:9-10 (so contradicting the Calvinist interpretation, this meaning is exactly why God quotes this Potter and Clay passage in Rom. 9, and this message is the very mission of the prophet [Jer. 1:10]); implicit in God's urging Jerusalem to repent is that He wants to change His mind about the plan and disaster that He has fashioned and devised against them, so that He would not be compelled to bring it to pass, for "Thus says the Lord: 'Behold, I am fashioning a disaster and devising a plan against you. Return now every one from his evil way, and make your ways and your doings good.' " Jer. 18:11; "God repented from the disaster that He said He would bring upon [Nineveh] and He did not do it" Jonah 3:10. Why didn't He destroy the city? Because God is great! The Bible says that love is greater than both prophecy and having all knowledge (philosophers call these exhaustive foreknowledge and omniscience and theologians prioritize both above God's biblical attribute of love) for as the Holy Spirit inspired Paul to write, "though I have... prophecy and... all knowledge... but have not love, I am nothing. ... Love never fails. But whether there are prophecies, they will fail" 1 Cor. 13:2, 8 [yet Christianity's most influential theologian could not see this because, as he confessed in writing, Augustine admitted he interpreted Paul's epistles through the lens of Plato's pagan Greek philosophy]; God cared more for the people of Nineveh than He did for the fulfillment of the prophecy of its destruction Jonah 4:11; etc., for example, see all of the repent verses below.
2 - God Exists in Time through duration contrary to the opposing claim of Plato and Augustine.
Speaking of Jesus Christ, "this Man, after He had offered one sacrifice for sins forever, sat down at the right hand of God, from that time waiting till His enemies are made His footstool" Heb. 10:12-13, and see the related passages Ps. 110:1; Mat. 22:44; Luke 20:43; Acts 2:35; Heb. 1:13; Jesus said, "My Father has been working until now, and I have been working" John 5:17; and of God the Son, "the Word became flesh" John 1:14; etc.; God gets weary of repenting Jer. 15:6; He asks "how long" shall I bear with an evil people Num. 14:27; "Therefore the Lord will wait, that He may be gracious to you... Blessed are all those who wait for Him" Isa. 30:18; God existing outside of time would invalidate one of the Lord's most wonderful arguments "concerning the dead, that they rise, have you not read in the book of Moses, in the burning bush passage, how God spoke to him, saying, 'I am the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob'? He is not the God of the dead, but the God of the living. You are therefore greatly mistaken" Mark 12:26-27 and Jesus argument is not unsound, which it would be if God existed outside of time, for then Abraham would be alive to God eternally even if there were no life after death; and the Burning Bush passage itself therefore shows God in time Ex. 3:6; and with God in time, of course, so the rest of the spiritual realm exists in time Mat. 8:29; Scripture never describes God as atemporal, timeless, having no past or future, or outside of time; the Bible frequently though describes Him as in duration including "God who is - and was - and is to come... says the Lord, 'who is and who was and who is to come, the Almighty' " Rev. 1:4, 8; "whose goings forth are from of old" Mic. 5:2; "before all [created] things" Col. 1:17; "forever and ever" Ex. 15:18; 1 Chr. 29:10; Ps. 10:16; 45:6; 48:14; Heb. 1:8; Rev. 4:9-10; 5:14; 10:6; 11:15; 15:7; "the Ancient of Days" Dan. 7:9; 7:13; 7:22; in the Greek, from before the ages of the ages 2 Tim. 1:9; Titus 1:2; "from ancient times" Isa. 46:10; "the everlasting God" Gen. 21:33; Isa. 40:28; Rom. 16:26; [Deut. 33:27]; "He continues forever" Heb. 7:24; "from of old" Ps. 25:6; 55:19; 93:2; Isa. 57:11; "from everlasting" Ps. 93:2; Micah 5:2; "remains forever" John 12:34; has "everlasting dominion" Dan. 4:34; "abides" 1 John 2:17; "eternal" Rom. 1:20; 2 Cor. 4:18; 1 Tim. 1:17; Heb. 9:14; 1 John 5:11; Immortal 1 Tim. 1:17; 6:16; "the Lord shall endure forever" Ps. 9:7; who "lives forever" Dan. 4:34; 12:7; Rev. 4:9-10; 5:14; 10:6; 15:7; "yesterday, today, and forever" Heb. 13:8; "His years" are without number Job 36:26; "rock of ages" / "everlasting strength" Isa. 26:9; "manifest in His own time" 1 Tim. 6:15; "everlasting Father" Isa. 9:6; "alive forevermore" Rev. 1:18; "always lives" Heb. 7:25; "forever" Ps. 110:4; 146:10; Dan. 6:26; Rom. 16:27; 2 Cor. 9:9; Heb. 1:8; 7:21; 24; 28; 1 John 2:17; Jude 1:25; Rev. 1:6; "continually" Ps.40:11; 52:1; Luke 1:33; Heb. 7:3; "the eternal God" Deut. 33:27; God’s "years will have no end" Ps. 102:27; "from everlasting to everlasting" 1 Chr. 16:36; Ps. 41:13; 90:2; 106:48; "from that time forward, even forever" Isa. 9:7; so "when the fullness of the time had come, God sent forth His Son, born of a woman" Gal. 4:4; then, not us, but God the Son "finished" paying for man's sin when He said, "It is finished!" John 19:30; "He will reign... and of His kingdom there will be no end" Luke 1:33; etc. And see the closely related verses of Category 3 and of Category 4 showing that God acts in sequence and also of Category 28 that time exists in heaven.
3 - God has Qualities that can Only be had if He Exists in Time like patience, slow to anger, and hope.
Patience: 1 Peter 3:20; Ex. 34:6; Num. 14:18; Neh. 9:30; Ps. 86:15; Rom. 2:4; 9:22; 1 Tim. 1:16; 2 Peter 3:9, 15; As the LORD says, "I have held My peace a long time" Isa. 42:14; "In Your enduring patience" Jer. 15:15; and "God is Love" 1 John 4:8, 16 and "Love is patient" 1 Cor. 13:4 and He is "the God of patience" Rom. 15:5; etc.
Endurance: God endured His people’s complaints Num. 14:27 with "enduring patience" Jer. 15:15; He endured their misery Jud. 10:16; their cries Luke 18:7; the wicked Rom. 9:22; hostility Heb. 12:3; the cross Heb. 12:2
Slow to anger and long-suffering: Neh. 9:17; Ps. 103:8; 145:8; Joel 2:13; Jonah 4:2; Nah. 1:3
Provokable: God can go from not being provoked, to being provoked, such as being provoked to wrath Zech. 8:14; provoked in the wilderness Deut. 9:7; in Horeb 9:8; three other times 9:22; in Jehoiakim's time Ez. 5:12; provoked to jealousy and be aroused to anger, by Jeshurun Deut. 32:16; 32:19; by that perverse wilderness generation 32:21; by Judah 1 Ki. 14:22; during Shiloh's downfall Ps. 78:58; the generation after Joshua Jud. 2:12; by King Jeroboam 1 Ki. 15:30; by King Ahab 21:22; by King Ahaziah 22:53; by King Hoshea 2 Ki. 21:15; by Manasseh 23:26; by King Ahaz 2 Chr. 28:25; by Sanballat and Samaria's army Neh. 4:5; [9:18; 9:26]; at Paran Ps. 78:56; 78:58; at Beth Peor 106:29; by Judah Isa. 1:4; by God's people Jer. 8:19; by Israel 32:30; and Jerusalem specifically 32:31; by Ephraim Hos. 12:14
Curious: "Out of the ground the Lord God formed every beast of the field and every bird of the air, and brought them to Adam to see what he would call them. And whatever Adam called each living creature, that was its name" Gen. 2:19; [Gen. 18:21; 22:12]; etc.
Sustain emotion: I will not remain angry forever Jer. 3:12
Faithfulness: from everlasting to everlasting He endures in faithfulness for He is "the faithful God" Deut 7:9; possessing great faithfulness Lam. 3:23; Ps. 36:5; 37:3; 71:22; Ps. 89:24; God's faithfulness is not an inability (because He cannot change) but an ability (which He must actively maintain) Ps. 89:33; 92:2; 98:3; 119:75; 119:90; 143:1; Isa. 11:5; 25:1; Hos. 2:20;
Hope: as many verses show (see above) that God hopes His prophecies of judgment will fail, clearly God hopes; biblical hope is knowledge influenced by love and faithfulness for "hope that is seen is not hope" Rom, 8:24 yet God hopes, for just as Paul describes Him as the "God of love", so too he writes of "the God of hope" Rom. 15:13; whereas hope is weakness and error to those who believe in divine unchanging knowledge, however God unhesitantly acknowledges His hope as through Zephaniah, "I said, 'Surely you will fear Me, you will receive instruction' but... they corrupted all their deeds" Zeph. 3:7; comparing Israel to a tended vineyard, "He expected it to bring forth good grapes" but it did not for instead "it brought forth wild grapes" Isaiah 5:1-2; "What more could have been done...?", God asks, thus He says, "I expected it to bring forth good grapes" but instead He got "wild grapes" Isa. 5:3-4; "My Father... is One who seeks and judges" John 8:49-50; for "He seeks godly offspring" Mal. 2:15; (and see the Category 11 expectation verses below, including Isa. 30:15-16; 63:8-10; Jer. 18:7-8 and the Category 1 judgment prophecy verses above including Ezek. 33:14-15; Jer. 3:7; 18:7-8; 26:3, 13; Ezek. 18:30-31)
Can be limited: "they... limited the Holy One of Israel" Ps. 78:41 (because love must be freely given, thus limiting God when His love goes unrequited)
Related abilities: See also the remembers and looks forward to verses in the next category.
Consider also Wisdom Job 12:13 (and even discernment Heb. 4:12). About 1,000 times God's Word mentions wisdom, knowledge, and understanding, four times more frequently than the mention of miracles, signs, and wonders. Wisdom is the application of experiential knowledge and good judgment. Wisdom, like insight, involves outcomes Prov. 3:19, 9:10; etc., and doing now what you will be satisfied with later. So God is frequently described as wise and having wisdom Job 9:4; 1 Kings 3:28; Dan. 2:20; 1 Cor. 1:25; 1 Tim. 1:17; Jude 25; Just as the Bible says that "hope that is seen is not hope", likewise, [good] judgment that is seen is not judgment, it's just vision. Further, experiential knowledge (see below), like good judgment and hope, is a kind of knowledge that can only be had by one who exists in time.
4 - God Acts Externally in Sequence showing that He is not outside of but in time (and see also just below, sequence within the Godhead).
In actions: "But this Man [God the Son], after He had offered one sacrifice for sins forever, sat down at the right hand of God, from that time waiting till His enemies" are subdued Heb. 10:12-13; prior to this, "Before the mountains were brought forth, or ever You had formed the earth and the world, even from everlasting to everlasting, You are God" Ps. 90:2; God then first created and then ceased from His creative work Gen. 2:1-3; later God waited while the ark was being prepared 1 Peter 3:20; God has not pre-determined everything He will do but He says that when certain things happen, then He determines what He will do next, by saying "I determined to punish you when your fathers provoked Me" Zech. 8:14; and likewise see Jer. 26:3 and "If you will not listen to Me... then I will make this... city a curse" Jer. 26:4, 6"; "My Father has been working until now, and I have been working" John 5:17; God speaks in heaven 1 Kings 22:20 and from heaven Mat. 3:17; 17:5; Speaking requires sequence which is why Augustine claimed that God could not speak because Augustine, sadly, had been convinced of divine atemporality by Plato so he denied that God could have said this, "Then a voice came from heaven, 'You are My beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased' " Mark 1:11; "And the Holy Spirit descended in bodily form like a dove upon Him, and a voice came from heaven which said, 'You are My beloved Son; in You I am well pleased' " Luke 3:22; and Augustine claims that God could not and did not utter those words even though they are self-evidently from the Father and even though the Apostle Peter explicitly attributes them to God 2 Peter 1:17; God was manifested in the flesh and (then after His death for Man's sin) justified by the Holy Spirit 1 Tim. 3:16; God the Son "finished" paying for man's sin saying, "It is finished!" John 19:30; He suffered, was killed, buried, and raised the third day Mat. 12:40; 16:21; 17:23; Mark 8:31; Luke 9:22; Acts 4:10; Rom. 14:9; 1 Cor. 15:4; regarding the old and new covenants He took "away the first that He may establish the second" Heb. 10:9; Jesus rose and then sought His disciples Mat. 26:32; Mark 14:28; John 21:14; God the Son went from not having a body John 4:24, to indwelling a form Gen. 3:8; 18:1-3; etc., to taking on a human body Luke 1:31, to having a "glorious body" Phil. 3:21; and God the Son "passed through the heavens" Heb. 4:14, whatever that means, to get from Earth to the Father's throne room; "but now, once at the end of the ages, He has appeared to put away sin by the sacrifice of Himself" Heb. 9:26; "so Christ was offered once to bear the sins of many. To those who eagerly wait for Him He will appear a second time, apart from sin, for salvation" Heb. 9:28.
In remembering and looking forward: God remembers as when He remembered His covenant with Abraham Ex. 2:24; and with Jacob Lev. 26:42; and His holy promise to the Israelites Ps. 105:42; etc.; Cornelius (the Gentile saved before baptism and apart from circumcision) had his alms remembered by God Acts 10:31; and God will remember Babylon's sins Rev. 16:19 and their iniquities Rev. 18:5; See also Gen 9:12-15; Ps. 136:23; Mal. 3:16; etc. (Also, when theologians say that God "enters" into time, what they're actually referring to is when God interacts with His creation. So as seen throughout Genesis to Revelation, even the common theological way of speaking admits that God acts in sequence, as there is a before He "enters" time and an after.) Jesus, who is God the Son, looked forward to the future time when His apostles would sit on twelve thrones and when He would sit on the throne of His glory Mat. 19:28; the Holy Spirit cannot act in someone's life until that person exists, so, significantly, the Scripture says to believers, "the Spirit of God dwells in you" 1 Cor. 3:16, something He could not do until you exist; "you shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you" Acts 1:8; "the Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in My name, He will teach you" John 14:26; "I tell you the truth... if I do not go away, the Helper will not come to you; but if I depart, I will send Him to you. And when He has come, He will convict the world of sin" John 16:7-8; "when he, the Spirit of truth, comes, he will guide you" John 16:13; "having believed, you were sealed with the Holy Spirit" Eph. 1:13; etc.; "My Father... is One who seeks" John 8:49-50; "He seeks godly offspring" Mal. 2:15; He held the righteous dead in "Abraham's Bosom" awaiting Christ's death, figuratively, with Abraham's Bosom as the Cities of Refuge, "until the death of the one who would be high priest in those days" Joshua 20:6; and literally, and symbolic of the entire group, upon Christ's death many graves were opened and the saints who had died were raised Mat. 27:52; at which time the deceased saints could finally then enter into heaven; also all "the days are coming" passages, like Amos 9:13-14; Mal. 3:17; etc.
Et cetera: [Mark 2:8]; And see the closely related verses above showing that God having duration exists in time and below that time exists in heaven.
5 - God Experiences Sequence Internally within the Godhead, including sequence of relationship, deciding, planning, becoming things, and even sharing.
The Father prepared a body for His Son Heb. 10:5; then He became the Father of a Son with two natures John 1:14; Luke 1:35 when the Holy Spirit overshadowed Mary; then the Father increased in favor with His Son Luke 2:52; the Son increased, for He must increase John 3:30; after the Son took upon Himself Man's sin, the Holy Spirit justified the Son 1 Tim. 3:16; (and if the throne at God's right hand suffices to refer to the Godhead, then consider also) God the Son, having become "the Son of Man", looks forward to again sitting on the throne of His glory Mat. 19:28; God "chose us in Him" (i.e., planned for the members of the Body of Christ) "before the foundation of the world" Eph. 1:4; the glory the Father gave to the Son because He loved Him before the creation John 17:24; and the glory He had shared with the Father before the world began John 17:5; "the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in My name" John 14:26; "Then the Lord said in His heart, 'I will never again... destroy every living thing as I have done' " Gen. 8:21; Heb. 9:24; etc.
6 - God Says Certain Things Happened that Never Entered His Mind.
They "burn their sons with fire for burnt offerings to Baal, which I did not command or speak nor did it come into My mind" Jer. 19:5; they "cause their sons and their daughters to pass through the fire to Molech, which I did not command them, nor did it come into My mind that they should do this abomination, to cause Judah to sin" Jer. 32:35; they "burn their sons and their daughters in the fire [to sacrifice them], which I did not command, nor did it come into My heart" Jer. 7:3. There are three things here that, prior to the first child sacrificed, that had never happened, and they are that God had never commanded, spoke, nor even had a thought that men would practice such a thing. In verse 19:5, for example, the English translations closely follow the Hebrew, including for "command", "speak", and "nor". In this sentence the "nor" indicates that there is this list of three things. Consider how these disprove the settled future doctrines within Molinism, Calvinism, and Arminianism. Molinists claim that logically prior to creating, God thought through every plausible future. These verses falsify that idea for they explicitly deny that God had ever thought of speaking about His people's infanticide. Yet here He is, in these passages, speaking about that very topic. So if Molinism were true, speaking about this topic is something that certainly would have entered God's mind. But because it did not, Molinism fails (by this category too, and for a total of 21 out of 33 categories). These same observations also disprove Calvinism. But there is another, deeper falsification of Calvin in these passages. This deeper issue applies to him and to all of those who refuse to repudiate John Calvin's Chapter 18 with his claim that God is "The Author" of Sin and that it is "No mere permission" but that "man does by God's just impulsion what he ought not to do", that is, sin. Such Calvinists should repent of their blasphemy upon realizing that to decree means to command, and if God decreed all of man's sin, that makes God, as Calvin Himself insisted, the Author of Sin. Thus, if as Calvin insisted, that God had eternally decreed all of man's sin, which would include that Judah would sacrifice children to Baal and to Molech, then because His decrees are His commands, therefore certainly, from eternity past, this would have been in His mind, that He would command this infanticide. This contradiction falsifies both Calvinism's system of comprehensive eternal decrees and it falsifies Calvinism's settled future because these things had never previously entered God's mind. For Arminians, their doctrine of a settled future would not be falsified in the same way that these verses falsify Calvinism, but it is contradicted by the very same reasoning used above against Molinism. For by Arminianism, it certainly would have entered God's mind from eternity past that He would "speak" about this infanticide, as He does in these verses and elsewhere, so this contradiction falsifies the Arminian settled future. Consider again these three things that never entered God's mind:
1st. Whereas God commanded Abraham to offer up Isaac (but then stopped him), He in no way commanded a system of child sacrifice, not even to Himself let alone to idols.
2nd. Before the foundations of the Earth when the Father, Son, and Spirit were sharing, fellowshipping, and planning as in Category 21, they were also discussing contingencies of what to do based on man's possible behavior, yet it never even came up in conversation that men might burn their babies to death, so they never even spoke about this.
3rd. Nor did it even enter God's mind that men might do such a thing.
He never commanded this, spoke of it, nor did it enter His mind. As to the words in 32:35, "to cause Judah to sin", in the context of sinning, "cause" is a Hebrew idiom meaning "provide the opportunity to". Jesus said that if a man divorces his wife without justification, he "causes her to commit adultery". By this idiom, this means that the husband provides the opportunity for his wife to sin by unjustly leaving her to fend for herself in a godless world. Men, and even God, provide opportunity to others to sin, and men even entice others to sin, but John Calvin notwithstanding, no one can cause another to sin. So by God giving human beings a will and enabling them to procreate, He provided the opportunity for this sin but He in no way, directly or indirectly, commanded such a sin.
From https://opentheism.org/verses
33 CATEGORIES OF TYPES OF OPEN THEISM VERSES with all 590+ indicating that the future is not settled but open. These show that...
1 - God Hopes His Prophecies of Judgment will Fail so that reconciliation with even more people may succeed, and only an open future enables God to hope anything at all, and especially, for the following...
God said to the wicked, "You shall surely die", but repent, so that you will "not die" Ezek. 33:14-15; Judah should repent so that God "may repent [not of sin, of course, but] concerning the calamity which I purpose to bring" Jer. 26:3; God's people should repent so that "then the Lord will repent concerning the doom that He has pronounced against you" Jer. 26:13; "I will judge you," God says, so "repent," because "why should you die"? Ezek. 18:30-31; when God speaks "concerning a nation... to destroy it, if that nation against whom I have spoken turns from its evil, I will repent of the disaster that I thought to bring upon it" Jer. 18:7-8 (this is God's interpretation of this Potter and Clay passage. However, many rejected God's warning by elevating prophecy above God Himself Jer. 18:18; yet God affirmed the inverse); when God speaks concerning "a kingdom to build and to plant it, if it does evil in My sight so that it does not obey My voice, then I will repent concerning the good with which I said I would benefit it" Jer. 18:9-10 (so contradicting the Calvinist interpretation, this meaning is exactly why God quotes this Potter and Clay passage in Rom. 9, and this message is the very mission of the prophet [Jer. 1:10]); implicit in God's urging Jerusalem to repent is that He wants to change His mind about the plan and disaster that He has fashioned and devised against them, so that He would not be compelled to bring it to pass, for "Thus says the Lord: 'Behold, I am fashioning a disaster and devising a plan against you. Return now every one from his evil way, and make your ways and your doings good.' " Jer. 18:11; "God repented from the disaster that He said He would bring upon [Nineveh] and He did not do it" Jonah 3:10. Why didn't He destroy the city? Because God is great! The Bible says that love is greater than both prophecy and having all knowledge (philosophers call these exhaustive foreknowledge and omniscience and theologians prioritize both above God's biblical attribute of love) for as the Holy Spirit inspired Paul to write, "though I have... prophecy and... all knowledge... but have not love, I am nothing. ... Love never fails. But whether there are prophecies, they will fail" 1 Cor. 13:2, 8 [yet Christianity's most influential theologian could not see this because, as he confessed in writing, Augustine admitted he interpreted Paul's epistles through the lens of Plato's pagan Greek philosophy]; God cared more for the people of Nineveh than He did for the fulfillment of the prophecy of its destruction Jonah 4:11; etc., for example, see all of the repent verses below.
2 - God Exists in Time through duration contrary to the opposing claim of Plato and Augustine.
Speaking of Jesus Christ, "this Man, after He had offered one sacrifice for sins forever, sat down at the right hand of God, from that time waiting till His enemies are made His footstool" Heb. 10:12-13, and see the related passages Ps. 110:1; Mat. 22:44; Luke 20:43; Acts 2:35; Heb. 1:13; Jesus said, "My Father has been working until now, and I have been working" John 5:17; and of God the Son, "the Word became flesh" John 1:14; etc.; God gets weary of repenting Jer. 15:6; He asks "how long" shall I bear with an evil people Num. 14:27; "Therefore the Lord will wait, that He may be gracious to you... Blessed are all those who wait for Him" Isa. 30:18; God existing outside of time would invalidate one of the Lord's most wonderful arguments "concerning the dead, that they rise, have you not read in the book of Moses, in the burning bush passage, how God spoke to him, saying, 'I am the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob'? He is not the God of the dead, but the God of the living. You are therefore greatly mistaken" Mark 12:26-27 and Jesus argument is not unsound, which it would be if God existed outside of time, for then Abraham would be alive to God eternally even if there were no life after death; and the Burning Bush passage itself therefore shows God in time Ex. 3:6; and with God in time, of course, so the rest of the spiritual realm exists in time Mat. 8:29; Scripture never describes God as atemporal, timeless, having no past or future, or outside of time; the Bible frequently though describes Him as in duration including "God who is - and was - and is to come... says the Lord, 'who is and who was and who is to come, the Almighty' " Rev. 1:4, 8; "whose goings forth are from of old" Mic. 5:2; "before all [created] things" Col. 1:17; "forever and ever" Ex. 15:18; 1 Chr. 29:10; Ps. 10:16; 45:6; 48:14; Heb. 1:8; Rev. 4:9-10; 5:14; 10:6; 11:15; 15:7; "the Ancient of Days" Dan. 7:9; 7:13; 7:22; in the Greek, from before the ages of the ages 2 Tim. 1:9; Titus 1:2; "from ancient times" Isa. 46:10; "the everlasting God" Gen. 21:33; Isa. 40:28; Rom. 16:26; [Deut. 33:27]; "He continues forever" Heb. 7:24; "from of old" Ps. 25:6; 55:19; 93:2; Isa. 57:11; "from everlasting" Ps. 93:2; Micah 5:2; "remains forever" John 12:34; has "everlasting dominion" Dan. 4:34; "abides" 1 John 2:17; "eternal" Rom. 1:20; 2 Cor. 4:18; 1 Tim. 1:17; Heb. 9:14; 1 John 5:11; Immortal 1 Tim. 1:17; 6:16; "the Lord shall endure forever" Ps. 9:7; who "lives forever" Dan. 4:34; 12:7; Rev. 4:9-10; 5:14; 10:6; 15:7; "yesterday, today, and forever" Heb. 13:8; "His years" are without number Job 36:26; "rock of ages" / "everlasting strength" Isa. 26:9; "manifest in His own time" 1 Tim. 6:15; "everlasting Father" Isa. 9:6; "alive forevermore" Rev. 1:18; "always lives" Heb. 7:25; "forever" Ps. 110:4; 146:10; Dan. 6:26; Rom. 16:27; 2 Cor. 9:9; Heb. 1:8; 7:21; 24; 28; 1 John 2:17; Jude 1:25; Rev. 1:6; "continually" Ps.40:11; 52:1; Luke 1:33; Heb. 7:3; "the eternal God" Deut. 33:27; God’s "years will have no end" Ps. 102:27; "from everlasting to everlasting" 1 Chr. 16:36; Ps. 41:13; 90:2; 106:48; "from that time forward, even forever" Isa. 9:7; so "when the fullness of the time had come, God sent forth His Son, born of a woman" Gal. 4:4; then, not us, but God the Son "finished" paying for man's sin when He said, "It is finished!" John 19:30; "He will reign... and of His kingdom there will be no end" Luke 1:33; etc. And see the closely related verses of Category 3 and of Category 4 showing that God acts in sequence and also of Category 28 that time exists in heaven.
3 - God has Qualities that can Only be had if He Exists in Time like patience, slow to anger, and hope.
Patience: 1 Peter 3:20; Ex. 34:6; Num. 14:18; Neh. 9:30; Ps. 86:15; Rom. 2:4; 9:22; 1 Tim. 1:16; 2 Peter 3:9, 15; As the LORD says, "I have held My peace a long time" Isa. 42:14; "In Your enduring patience" Jer. 15:15; and "God is Love" 1 John 4:8, 16 and "Love is patient" 1 Cor. 13:4 and He is "the God of patience" Rom. 15:5; etc.
Endurance: God endured His people’s complaints Num. 14:27 with "enduring patience" Jer. 15:15; He endured their misery Jud. 10:16; their cries Luke 18:7; the wicked Rom. 9:22; hostility Heb. 12:3; the cross Heb. 12:2
Slow to anger and long-suffering: Neh. 9:17; Ps. 103:8; 145:8; Joel 2:13; Jonah 4:2; Nah. 1:3
Provokable: God can go from not being provoked, to being provoked, such as being provoked to wrath Zech. 8:14; provoked in the wilderness Deut. 9:7; in Horeb 9:8; three other times 9:22; in Jehoiakim's time Ez. 5:12; provoked to jealousy and be aroused to anger, by Jeshurun Deut. 32:16; 32:19; by that perverse wilderness generation 32:21; by Judah 1 Ki. 14:22; during Shiloh's downfall Ps. 78:58; the generation after Joshua Jud. 2:12; by King Jeroboam 1 Ki. 15:30; by King Ahab 21:22; by King Ahaziah 22:53; by King Hoshea 2 Ki. 21:15; by Manasseh 23:26; by King Ahaz 2 Chr. 28:25; by Sanballat and Samaria's army Neh. 4:5; [9:18; 9:26]; at Paran Ps. 78:56; 78:58; at Beth Peor 106:29; by Judah Isa. 1:4; by God's people Jer. 8:19; by Israel 32:30; and Jerusalem specifically 32:31; by Ephraim Hos. 12:14
Curious: "Out of the ground the Lord God formed every beast of the field and every bird of the air, and brought them to Adam to see what he would call them. And whatever Adam called each living creature, that was its name" Gen. 2:19; [Gen. 18:21; 22:12]; etc.
Sustain emotion: I will not remain angry forever Jer. 3:12
Faithfulness: from everlasting to everlasting He endures in faithfulness for He is "the faithful God" Deut 7:9; possessing great faithfulness Lam. 3:23; Ps. 36:5; 37:3; 71:22; Ps. 89:24; God's faithfulness is not an inability (because He cannot change) but an ability (which He must actively maintain) Ps. 89:33; 92:2; 98:3; 119:75; 119:90; 143:1; Isa. 11:5; 25:1; Hos. 2:20;
Hope: as many verses show (see above) that God hopes His prophecies of judgment will fail, clearly God hopes; biblical hope is knowledge influenced by love and faithfulness for "hope that is seen is not hope" Rom, 8:24 yet God hopes, for just as Paul describes Him as the "God of love", so too he writes of "the God of hope" Rom. 15:13; whereas hope is weakness and error to those who believe in divine unchanging knowledge, however God unhesitantly acknowledges His hope as through Zephaniah, "I said, 'Surely you will fear Me, you will receive instruction' but... they corrupted all their deeds" Zeph. 3:7; comparing Israel to a tended vineyard, "He expected it to bring forth good grapes" but it did not for instead "it brought forth wild grapes" Isaiah 5:1-2; "What more could have been done...?", God asks, thus He says, "I expected it to bring forth good grapes" but instead He got "wild grapes" Isa. 5:3-4; "My Father... is One who seeks and judges" John 8:49-50; for "He seeks godly offspring" Mal. 2:15; (and see the Category 11 expectation verses below, including Isa. 30:15-16; 63:8-10; Jer. 18:7-8 and the Category 1 judgment prophecy verses above including Ezek. 33:14-15; Jer. 3:7; 18:7-8; 26:3, 13; Ezek. 18:30-31)
Can be limited: "they... limited the Holy One of Israel" Ps. 78:41 (because love must be freely given, thus limiting God when His love goes unrequited)
Related abilities: See also the remembers and looks forward to verses in the next category.
Consider also Wisdom Job 12:13 (and even discernment Heb. 4:12). About 1,000 times God's Word mentions wisdom, knowledge, and understanding, four times more frequently than the mention of miracles, signs, and wonders. Wisdom is the application of experiential knowledge and good judgment. Wisdom, like insight, involves outcomes Prov. 3:19, 9:10; etc., and doing now what you will be satisfied with later. So God is frequently described as wise and having wisdom Job 9:4; 1 Kings 3:28; Dan. 2:20; 1 Cor. 1:25; 1 Tim. 1:17; Jude 25; Just as the Bible says that "hope that is seen is not hope", likewise, [good] judgment that is seen is not judgment, it's just vision. Further, experiential knowledge (see below), like good judgment and hope, is a kind of knowledge that can only be had by one who exists in time.
4 - God Acts Externally in Sequence showing that He is not outside of but in time (and see also just below, sequence within the Godhead).
In actions: "But this Man [God the Son], after He had offered one sacrifice for sins forever, sat down at the right hand of God, from that time waiting till His enemies" are subdued Heb. 10:12-13; prior to this, "Before the mountains were brought forth, or ever You had formed the earth and the world, even from everlasting to everlasting, You are God" Ps. 90:2; God then first created and then ceased from His creative work Gen. 2:1-3; later God waited while the ark was being prepared 1 Peter 3:20; God has not pre-determined everything He will do but He says that when certain things happen, then He determines what He will do next, by saying "I determined to punish you when your fathers provoked Me" Zech. 8:14; and likewise see Jer. 26:3 and "If you will not listen to Me... then I will make this... city a curse" Jer. 26:4, 6"; "My Father has been working until now, and I have been working" John 5:17; God speaks in heaven 1 Kings 22:20 and from heaven Mat. 3:17; 17:5; Speaking requires sequence which is why Augustine claimed that God could not speak because Augustine, sadly, had been convinced of divine atemporality by Plato so he denied that God could have said this, "Then a voice came from heaven, 'You are My beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased' " Mark 1:11; "And the Holy Spirit descended in bodily form like a dove upon Him, and a voice came from heaven which said, 'You are My beloved Son; in You I am well pleased' " Luke 3:22; and Augustine claims that God could not and did not utter those words even though they are self-evidently from the Father and even though the Apostle Peter explicitly attributes them to God 2 Peter 1:17; God was manifested in the flesh and (then after His death for Man's sin) justified by the Holy Spirit 1 Tim. 3:16; God the Son "finished" paying for man's sin saying, "It is finished!" John 19:30; He suffered, was killed, buried, and raised the third day Mat. 12:40; 16:21; 17:23; Mark 8:31; Luke 9:22; Acts 4:10; Rom. 14:9; 1 Cor. 15:4; regarding the old and new covenants He took "away the first that He may establish the second" Heb. 10:9; Jesus rose and then sought His disciples Mat. 26:32; Mark 14:28; John 21:14; God the Son went from not having a body John 4:24, to indwelling a form Gen. 3:8; 18:1-3; etc., to taking on a human body Luke 1:31, to having a "glorious body" Phil. 3:21; and God the Son "passed through the heavens" Heb. 4:14, whatever that means, to get from Earth to the Father's throne room; "but now, once at the end of the ages, He has appeared to put away sin by the sacrifice of Himself" Heb. 9:26; "so Christ was offered once to bear the sins of many. To those who eagerly wait for Him He will appear a second time, apart from sin, for salvation" Heb. 9:28.
In remembering and looking forward: God remembers as when He remembered His covenant with Abraham Ex. 2:24; and with Jacob Lev. 26:42; and His holy promise to the Israelites Ps. 105:42; etc.; Cornelius (the Gentile saved before baptism and apart from circumcision) had his alms remembered by God Acts 10:31; and God will remember Babylon's sins Rev. 16:19 and their iniquities Rev. 18:5; See also Gen 9:12-15; Ps. 136:23; Mal. 3:16; etc. (Also, when theologians say that God "enters" into time, what they're actually referring to is when God interacts with His creation. So as seen throughout Genesis to Revelation, even the common theological way of speaking admits that God acts in sequence, as there is a before He "enters" time and an after.) Jesus, who is God the Son, looked forward to the future time when His apostles would sit on twelve thrones and when He would sit on the throne of His glory Mat. 19:28; the Holy Spirit cannot act in someone's life until that person exists, so, significantly, the Scripture says to believers, "the Spirit of God dwells in you" 1 Cor. 3:16, something He could not do until you exist; "you shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you" Acts 1:8; "the Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in My name, He will teach you" John 14:26; "I tell you the truth... if I do not go away, the Helper will not come to you; but if I depart, I will send Him to you. And when He has come, He will convict the world of sin" John 16:7-8; "when he, the Spirit of truth, comes, he will guide you" John 16:13; "having believed, you were sealed with the Holy Spirit" Eph. 1:13; etc.; "My Father... is One who seeks" John 8:49-50; "He seeks godly offspring" Mal. 2:15; He held the righteous dead in "Abraham's Bosom" awaiting Christ's death, figuratively, with Abraham's Bosom as the Cities of Refuge, "until the death of the one who would be high priest in those days" Joshua 20:6; and literally, and symbolic of the entire group, upon Christ's death many graves were opened and the saints who had died were raised Mat. 27:52; at which time the deceased saints could finally then enter into heaven; also all "the days are coming" passages, like Amos 9:13-14; Mal. 3:17; etc.
Et cetera: [Mark 2:8]; And see the closely related verses above showing that God having duration exists in time and below that time exists in heaven.
5 - God Experiences Sequence Internally within the Godhead, including sequence of relationship, deciding, planning, becoming things, and even sharing.
The Father prepared a body for His Son Heb. 10:5; then He became the Father of a Son with two natures John 1:14; Luke 1:35 when the Holy Spirit overshadowed Mary; then the Father increased in favor with His Son Luke 2:52; the Son increased, for He must increase John 3:30; after the Son took upon Himself Man's sin, the Holy Spirit justified the Son 1 Tim. 3:16; (and if the throne at God's right hand suffices to refer to the Godhead, then consider also) God the Son, having become "the Son of Man", looks forward to again sitting on the throne of His glory Mat. 19:28; God "chose us in Him" (i.e., planned for the members of the Body of Christ) "before the foundation of the world" Eph. 1:4; the glory the Father gave to the Son because He loved Him before the creation John 17:24; and the glory He had shared with the Father before the world began John 17:5; "the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in My name" John 14:26; "Then the Lord said in His heart, 'I will never again... destroy every living thing as I have done' " Gen. 8:21; Heb. 9:24; etc.
6 - God Says Certain Things Happened that Never Entered His Mind.
They "burn their sons with fire for burnt offerings to Baal, which I did not command or speak nor did it come into My mind" Jer. 19:5; they "cause their sons and their daughters to pass through the fire to Molech, which I did not command them, nor did it come into My mind that they should do this abomination, to cause Judah to sin" Jer. 32:35; they "burn their sons and their daughters in the fire [to sacrifice them], which I did not command, nor did it come into My heart" Jer. 7:3. There are three things here that, prior to the first child sacrificed, that had never happened, and they are that God had never commanded, spoke, nor even had a thought that men would practice such a thing. In verse 19:5, for example, the English translations closely follow the Hebrew, including for "command", "speak", and "nor". In this sentence the "nor" indicates that there is this list of three things. Consider how these disprove the settled future doctrines within Molinism, Calvinism, and Arminianism. Molinists claim that logically prior to creating, God thought through every plausible future. These verses falsify that idea for they explicitly deny that God had ever thought of speaking about His people's infanticide. Yet here He is, in these passages, speaking about that very topic. So if Molinism were true, speaking about this topic is something that certainly would have entered God's mind. But because it did not, Molinism fails (by this category too, and for a total of 21 out of 33 categories). These same observations also disprove Calvinism. But there is another, deeper falsification of Calvin in these passages. This deeper issue applies to him and to all of those who refuse to repudiate John Calvin's Chapter 18 with his claim that God is "The Author" of Sin and that it is "No mere permission" but that "man does by God's just impulsion what he ought not to do", that is, sin. Such Calvinists should repent of their blasphemy upon realizing that to decree means to command, and if God decreed all of man's sin, that makes God, as Calvin Himself insisted, the Author of Sin. Thus, if as Calvin insisted, that God had eternally decreed all of man's sin, which would include that Judah would sacrifice children to Baal and to Molech, then because His decrees are His commands, therefore certainly, from eternity past, this would have been in His mind, that He would command this infanticide. This contradiction falsifies both Calvinism's system of comprehensive eternal decrees and it falsifies Calvinism's settled future because these things had never previously entered God's mind. For Arminians, their doctrine of a settled future would not be falsified in the same way that these verses falsify Calvinism, but it is contradicted by the very same reasoning used above against Molinism. For by Arminianism, it certainly would have entered God's mind from eternity past that He would "speak" about this infanticide, as He does in these verses and elsewhere, so this contradiction falsifies the Arminian settled future. Consider again these three things that never entered God's mind:
1st. Whereas God commanded Abraham to offer up Isaac (but then stopped him), He in no way commanded a system of child sacrifice, not even to Himself let alone to idols.
2nd. Before the foundations of the Earth when the Father, Son, and Spirit were sharing, fellowshipping, and planning as in Category 21, they were also discussing contingencies of what to do based on man's possible behavior, yet it never even came up in conversation that men might burn their babies to death, so they never even spoke about this.
3rd. Nor did it even enter God's mind that men might do such a thing.
He never commanded this, spoke of it, nor did it enter His mind. As to the words in 32:35, "to cause Judah to sin", in the context of sinning, "cause" is a Hebrew idiom meaning "provide the opportunity to". Jesus said that if a man divorces his wife without justification, he "causes her to commit adultery". By this idiom, this means that the husband provides the opportunity for his wife to sin by unjustly leaving her to fend for herself in a godless world. Men, and even God, provide opportunity to others to sin, and men even entice others to sin, but John Calvin notwithstanding, no one can cause another to sin. So by God giving human beings a will and enabling them to procreate, He provided the opportunity for this sin but He in no way, directly or indirectly, commanded such a sin.
