BATTLE TALK ~ BRX (rounds 1 thru 3)

[Rimi]

Ephesians 1:4 *According as he hath chosen us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before him in love:
5 ]Having predestinated us unto the adoption of children by Jesus Christ to himself, according to the good pleasure of his will,[/b]---------------11 *In whom also we have obtained an inheritance, being predestinated according to the purpose of him who worketh all things after the counsel of his own will:Romans 8:29 *¶For whom he did foreknow, he also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brethren.
30 *Moreover whom he did predestinate, them he also called: and whom he called, them he also justified: and whom he justified, them he also glorified.

So, God wanted someone to eat paint chips. :bang:

 

[drbrumley]

You have never shown that what I have said is untrue. You have made some demeaning remarks and said that ov states this or that, which is far from a rebuttal. You have never shown that z-man was in error ether. You have objected to what was said but never a factual rebuttal. You just can't say I win and expect to win.

Is this still over the Ahab issue?

 

[Clete]

You have never shown that what I have said is untrue. You have made some demeaning remarks and said that ov states this or that, which is far from a rebuttal. You have never shown that z-man was in error ether. You have objected to what was said but never a factual rebuttal. You just can't say I win and expect to win.

Answer my question e4e.

Is this your way of saying that there is no specific lie that you can point too that I made last week when you made your false accusation?

If not, then please tell us all where is the lie that prompted last weeks accusation or admit plainly that you made it up.

Resting in Him,
Clete

 

[Montana]

In round five, Sam reiterates that in his view God “is not timeless.” He further states that besides “foreordaining whatever comes to pass,” God “foresees that as well.”

By “not timeless,” Sam must agree with the Open View that God is in time. I am also in time. The only way for me to foresee, say, what Sam will eat for lunch tomorrow, is to time-travel. And it would take part of today for me to time-travel to tomorrow. The more I learn about tomorrow, the less I’ll be here today. If Sam’s God is off foreseeing eternity, he cannot possibly be home today.

No where in the Bible does God, or anyone else, time-travel. I appreciate the endless hours that Godly men spend assuring that the Bible I read is a good translation. But neither I or Sam need accept the prevarications of dark-age pedagogues.

 

[Vaquero45]

In round five, Sam reiterates that in his view God “is not timeless.” He further states that besides “foreordaining whatever comes to pass,” God “foresees that as well.”

By “not timeless,” Sam must agree with the Open View that God is in time. I am also in time. The only way for me to foresee, say, what Sam will eat for lunch tomorrow, is to time-travel. And it would take part of today for me to time-travel to tomorrow. The more I learn about tomorrow, the less I’ll be here today. If Sam’s God is off foreseeing eternity, he cannot possibly be home today.

No where in the Bible does God, or anyone else, time-travel. I appreciate the endless hours that Godly men spend assuring that the Bible I read is a good translation. But neither I or Sam need accept the prevarications of dark-age pedagogues.

How long does it take to spend time being outside of time? :think:

 

[jeremiah]

In round five, Sam reiterates that in his view God “is not timeless.” He further states that besides “foreordaining whatever comes to pass,” God “foresees that as well.”

If Sam’s God is off foreseeing eternity, he cannot possibly be home today.

.

Have you ever heard of multitasking? I think God would be "preety" good at it don't you? If not, please let me know next time you are praying. I will wait until you are done, so I will have a better chance of being heard.

 

[Melika]

Does God Know your entire future?

Does God Know your entire future?

From before you were knit together in your mother's womb to the time you expire from this
plane. God lives out of time so to Him your life could be a blink of an eye. :duh:

 

[RightIdea]

From before you were knit together in your mother's womb to the time you expire from this
plane. God lives out of time so to Him your life could be a blink of an eye. :duh:

Melika, God cannot possibly exist outside of time. It is illogical and totally self-contradictory. I invite you to check out the God/Time thread to see what I mean.

If God doesn't experience time, then for God, there isn't any before-and-after, no chronology. How can God think, decide, act, respond, affect or be affected by anything? For any of those things to happen, a change would occur from God's perspective, meaning a before-and-after. Meaning chronology. Meaning time for God. God must experience time.

If God sees all of time simultaneously, then you're telling us that from God's point of view, Jesus is not yet born, is alive, dead, and resurrected all at the same time. From God's point of view, you are both saved and not saved, and not yet born? From God's perspective, an unbeliever is alive... and standing before the Great White Throne judgement... and in the Lake of Fire, all at the same time? These things just don't make sense. If God sees someone is an unrepentant sinner all their life, ending up in the Lake of Fire, why would He be extending grace to that person?

Check out the God/time thread! We talk a lot about this. I hope you'll chime in.

http://www.theologyonline.com/forums/showthread.php?t=22289&goto=newpost

 

[Montana]

the "not timeless" God

the "not timeless" God

Jeremiah says that Sam's "not timeless" God can know the future by multitasking.

Have you ever heard of multitasking? I think God would be "preety" good at it don't you? If not, please let me know next time you are praying. I will wait until you are done, so I will have a better chance of being heard.

Let’s put on our thinking caps and reason this thing out. It is not about whether or not God can multitask. It is about whether or not God can indwell multiple time events at ounce. If He can, He must be outside of time, or timeless. Sam says that “God is not timeless” (praise the Lord), but that God still foresee eternity.

My point is that only a “timeless” God can be here and in the past and future too. The “in time” God would have leave here to view there.

Some may argue that God sees the future in fast motion, to which I say, but not exhaustively. It takes an eternity to view eternity no matter what speed you’re at. God cannot be in time and all knowing (in the Calvinist sense) at the same time.

Sam wants his cake and eat it too. But that he tries to reformulate the Calvinist mantras is a good sign.

 

[DonW]

Long time ago somebody said...

Long time ago somebody said...

Montana said:

Don W., I never said that we cannot know about other people’s sins without being guilty them ourselves. ... I think God really did get educated as to sin. God “repented that he made man” because He learned something that changed his mind.

You did say:

The question I like asking people is this: “Where does a book originate, at the end of the printing press or in the mind of its author?” They always answer honestly, “In the mind of its Author.” And that’s true for any creation. It originates in the mind of its creator.

God is the creator of earth. If He foreknew every perverted thing that would happen on earth before creating it, then He would have been the author of that perversity.

God delegated the ability to make a free will decision to man. That nullifies your thesis. It is like the author submitting his work to an editor who makes changes in the work.

The Hebrew word is nacham which means to breathe heavily, by implication, to grieve, or to repent. We've all seen that here. But if God truly repented He would remake man (or some other creature) instead of leaving 8 existing samples alive to continue the race of man. By leaving man intact and unchanged despite the enormous change wrought to the rest of creation, we know that God did not repent.

The text doesn't say God was at all surprised by the turn of events. In fact, the text implies that God foresaw the need to bring judgment at least 120 years into the future. Therefore, God grieved and took an action which was not foretold to the audience but may have been planned from the beginning. No deficit of foreknowledge is necessary to reconcile the scriptures.

Yorzhik said:

Although we haven't brought it up before, you correctly identified intent as the key...

In the same way, God would be responsible for all the events that cascaded from his creation if He knew of every event that would result from His initial set of conditions. And there is nothing wrong with this except that God has said there are certain things He isn't responsible for. So either God is lying, or He didn't create the cascade of events that resulted in an outcome that He did not want.

But wait, didn't you just agree with me that intent is the key? So if events cascade which God allows as expressions of free will but did not intend, then God is not liable, nor lying about His transcendence (which includes not being responsible for free will acts of created agents).

By definition foreknowledge simply means to know prior to the event. It does not mean, nor can it logically ever mean, cause prior to the event. It does not imply intent on the part of the foreknower for the event to occur, much less preordain that it must happen. That is determinism, not foreknowledge.

It is impossible to debate if terms are not used accurately.

Yes, yes, I understand the difference between determinism and foreknowledge. However, you fail to see the implications of creating an initial set of conditions knowing exactly what those conditions will result in.

That assumes that God intends for the result of every free will action. That assumption is not necessary to foreknowledge.

For example, I know that any children I have will die. I do not wish for them to die, yet I know it with certainty because of God's declared will that all die and face judgment. Your thesis is comparable to saying that if I choose to have children, I wish death upon them. Instead, I wish them to face life, and death, with courage and good character conforming to the image of Christ.

By no coincidence, that is exactly what God wishes for every man and woman. I have learned this from God's word, and I have conformed my mind and will to His on this point. God's wish for mankind has never changed, despite His foreknowledge that all mankind would fail and face damnation. He provided a means to achieve His wish, by the blood of Christ Jesus the Son of God.

 

[jeremiah]

Jeremiah says that Sam's "not timeless" God can know the future by multitasking.



Let’s put on our thinking caps and reason this thing out. It is not about whether or not God can multitask. It is about whether or not God can indwell multiple time events at ounce. If He can, He must be outside of time, or timeless. Sam says that “God is not timeless” (praise the Lord), but that God still foresee eternity.

My point is that only a “timeless” God can be here and in the past and future too. The “in time” God would have leave here to view there.

Some may argue that God sees the future in fast motion, to which I say, but not exhaustively. It takes an eternity to view eternity no matter what speed you’re at. God cannot be in time and all knowing (in the Calvinist sense) at the same time.

Sam wants his cake and eat it too. But that he tries to reformulate the Calvinist mantras is a good sign.

I do not have to leave the present to view the past. You or I could sit down for one hour and watch a DVD of let's say, our sister's wedding from last week, which lasted one hour. Can God watch a hundred dvd's on maximum Fast Forward all at the same time? If so, how about a million or a trillion? What is the maximum number He could watch, at maximum FF in one hour, with perfect retention, of every detail. No one of us can say. But if He can't do such things, then the Great white throne judgment of billions of people over six thousand years of time is going to take a very, very, long time.
And if God can't view the future, because it hasn't happened yet, that is really the rub of the problem to which we can only speculate. Certainly if the future were like the past we can see how He "could" view both of them, in the present, just as we do , with imprtant events in our family's past, only at full FF.
The fact of the perfect prediction of Peter's denial, and the many other fulfilled prophecies from Jesus, and in the whole Bible, is our leading indicator that somehow He can!
Or, He is bringing to pass all that He declared for the future. Either way, we have an amazing God who is beyond our full understanding.

 

[godrulz]

The past is not like the future. The past has happened and is fixed. It is now a mere memory and could be watched on a DVD. The future is not yet. It is not real. It is possible vs actual. God correctly knows it as such. There is not a DVD of the future in God's library yet.

God's proximal knowledge of isolated cases (Peter; Judas) cannot be extrapolated to exhaustive foreknowledge of every future moral and mundane choice.

God does bring to pass the things He declares He will do (Is. 46;48). This cannot be extrapolated to mean that He brings all things to pass, including heinous evil.

 

[Montana]

I do not have to leave the present to view the past. You or I could sit down for one hour and watch a DVD of let's say, our sister's wedding from last week, which lasted one hour. Can God watch a hundred dvd's on maximum Fast Forward all at the same time? If so, how about a million or a trillion? What is the maximum number He could watch, at maximum FF in one hour, with perfect retention, of every detail. No one of us can say. But if He can't do such things, then the Great white throne judgment of billions of people over six thousand years of time is going to take a very, very, long time.
And if God can't view the future, because it hasn't happened yet, that is really the rub of the problem to which we can only speculate. Certainly if the future were like the past we can see how He "could" view both of them, in the present, just as we do , with imprtant events in our family's past, only at full FF.
The fact of the perfect prediction of Peter's denial, and the many other fulfilled prophecies from Jesus, and in the whole Bible, is our leading indicator that somehow He can!
Or, He is bringing to pass all that He declared for the future. Either way, we have an amazing God who is beyond our full understanding.

Jeremiah, like you, I have no doubt that God can watch endless numbers of DVD all at once. No disagreement there. As far as what God knows about the past, to quote Bob, "God knows everything He want's to know, about everything there is to know." The past is there to know and God knows all of it, except for the parts that He does not want to know. If portions of the past that He is not familiar with are relevant to the White Thrown Judgement, then he can do as you suggest and watch videos, all of them at once if He chooses.

As far as God indwelling the past, He cannot. The past is over with, it is gone, it is dead. God is a living God. And I do not think we have to speculate as to whether God (specifically the "not timeless" God of Sam, Bob, and the Bible) can view the future. Again, if it were possible for an "in time" God to view (i.e., foresee) the future, it would by travel there. Now, several Star Trek episodes indicate that that’s possible, but the Bible does not. So from where should we take our cosmology?

It is a pleasure talking to you, and yes, “we [do] have an amazing God who is beyond our full understanding.”

P.S.; Please remember, an misspellings must have been preordained.

 

[Montana]

Montana said:
You did say:
God delegated the ability to make a free will decision to man. That nullifies your thesis. It is like the author submitting his work to an editor who makes changes in the work.

The Hebrew word is nacham which means to breathe heavily, by implication, to grieve, or to repent. We've all seen that here. But if God truly repented He would remake man (or some other creature) instead of leaving 8 existing samples alive to continue the race of man. By leaving man intact and unchanged despite the enormous change wrought to the rest of creation, we know that God did not repent.

The text doesn't say God was at all surprised by the turn of events. In fact, the text implies that God foresaw the need to bring judgment at least 120 years into the future. Therefore, God grieved and took an action which was not foretold to the audience but may have been planned from the beginning. No deficit of foreknowledge is necessary to reconcile the scriptures.

Don W, nice to hear from you. I do not think you are “nullifying my thesis,” I think you are making my point. You are exactly correct that God delegates us the power and freedom to make our own decisions, just like the author delegates the power and freedom to the editor to make changes to his manuscript. But guess what, the author does not know what changes the editor will make. And God did not know what choices Man would come up with.

You say God did not repent because he left eight people alive. Seems to me He repented that He made all but eight people. And why if you have a problem with God repenting, do you not have a problem with Him “grieving”, as you say. Don’t we repent when something we didn’t want to have happen happens? And Don’t we grieve when something we didn’t want to have happen happens?

I can’t for the life of me understand the absolutely need to take away God’s ability to learn something new, have an idea, or change. Let go of the metaphysical nonsense and allow His Word and creation to speak aloud.

 

[KS Presby]

This should not be an issue.

Open theism is heresy.

Simple as that. That this is even being discussed among Christians shows just how far the modern church has fallen from orthodox Christianity.

We need to once again return to the "faith once delivered to the saints," which does have God know everything.

 

[drbrumley]

This should not be an issue.

Open theism is heresy.

Simple as that. That this is even being discussed among Christians shows just how far the modern church has fallen from orthodox Christianity.

We need to once again return to the "faith once delivered to the saints," which does have God know everything.

:rotfl:

 

[Clete]

This should not be an issue.

Open theism is heresy.

Simple as that. That this is even being discussed among Christians shows just how far the modern church has fallen from orthodox Christianity.

We need to once again return to the "faith once delivered to the saints," which does have God know everything.

Saying it doesn't make it so. For open theists, the test of truth is not orthodoxy but Scripture.

The teachings and traditions of man (i.e. orthodoxy) do not matter to me at all unless they can be shown to be both Biblical and of sound reason.Personally I don't care if Paul himself believed something, if it isn't Biblical then it was wrong then and it is still wrong today. I as an open theist am interested only in what it Biblical not what is historical when it comes to my theology. Not that the two are always in conflict but when they are, the former ALWAYS take precedence over the later no matter what the consequences might be. I trust God and His Word over any history book or the teaching of any man. Can you say the same?

Resting in Him,
Clete

 

[Turbo]

This should not be an issue.

Open theism is heresy.

Simple as that.

Well, thanks for clearing that up for us, KS Presby. :ha:

Welcome (back) to TOL. :wave:

 

[RightIdea]

This should not be an issue.

Open theism is heresy.

Simple as that. That this is even being discussed among Christians shows just how far the modern church has fallen from orthodox Christianity.

We need to once again return to the "faith once delivered to the saints," which does have God know everything.

You know what's heresy?

Settled viewers like you whose doctrine requires that God LIES over and over and over and over in the Bible, all for His greater "glory." Your God is a lying deceiver who repeatedly, intentionally tells people things He knows to be flatly false, to bring about His purposes. You have a lot of gall accusing us of heresy when we affirm God's omniscience, omnipotence and omnipresence while you make claims about how He cannot change the future, cannot make Creation with an open future, cannot change His mind... simply isn't omnipotent.

A weak God who lies. Who's preaching heresy? You tell me.

 

[KS Presby]

Sir, I will take Scripture anyday over your new and man-made innovation called open theism.

I will take what has been the orthodox position of the church from day one because it is proven in Scripture over your heresy.