elected4ever
New member
Godrulz,
I continue to have qualms with Open Theism because it continues to understand God from the perspective of the Creation. You continue to speak of a "personal" God, and that troubles me for a single reason: everyone wants a personal God. You continue to talk about the ancient and modern cultures and their views of the gods as being "impersonal," because their gods are a bunch of egotistical maniacs. I would have to agree with your assessment of their gods, but I do not agree that these gods are "impersonal".
You see, the gods of the ancient middle-east were some of the most personal gods around, because they would flock around their respective peoples and serve as patrons to them. And the people would serve them, not always out of fear, but because their patron god offered protection, gifts, and prosperity. The personal god becomes a god who relates to us on our terms.
The problem I have with this idea of a "personal" god is that it ultimately leads to idolatry, for the god who is intelligible to us is a god like us, a god made in our image. So when you talk about the "personal" god it makes me uneasy, because this language inevitably leads down the road of idolatry (and if Israel could engage in idolatry in its understanding of God's revelation to them, then we had better believe that it is a danger for us as well). Idolatry isn't simply setting up images of your god and worshiping the images; idolatry is an ideology of relationship between the gods and humanity, where humans define the relationship.
As soon as you define God as "personal," you are making an assumption that God could be something else. You see, in your descriptors of God you are fashioning the God who best serves you, molding him into shape until he is the perfect match for humanity. This would be great from an anthropologist's perspective (for he or she assumes that "God" is and has always been a construct of the human intelligence) but for a Christian this is horrific. If God is merely the object out of which we form an image of God, then our God is nothing more than an idol; he may not be fashioned from stone or wood, but he has become an idol nonetheless.
My answer to it is let God be God. Do not attempt to fashion an image of him, or to use his revelation to us in order to pin God down. God is God, and he remains a mystery to us. Those who attempt to understand God will ultimately engage in idolatry, and this is not acceptable. We must worship God in "spirit and in truth;" we do not worship the God who we understand.
Now you assume that because I have rejected Open Theism there is only one more option, and that is Calvinism. But I tell you, Calvinism is no better in its understanding of God, for it too has latched on to an idol of its own making. As I said before the god of our making, the god of our understanding is a god who is ultimately an idol. When we define the relationship, then it is idolatry, plain and simple. Calvinism has once again done that, for they have tried to understand God from the posibilities of Creation. Our God must be in control, and we see things that seem out of control, hence the things we see must be from God. It is wrong. To understand God based on the control God has over us, is like evaluating God as a king, and seeing wheather the king is truly king based on his control of his people. If God were like a human king, then we would be in trouble. But I know God does not rule like any other king, because the king is revealed in Christ, and he ruled like no other (from a cross).
You see, Godrulz, you are understanding God through the presence of evil (and I have read the first few pages of Sander's book The God Who Risks, and I see him doing the same thing. There is evil in the world and now we must understand God in terms of what we see. And because we understand freedom from liberal demacracy, we assume that a God who controlled evil would not be loving. Though I understand your outcries against the Calvinists and their "all-powerful" God, I hardly see your understanding of God as being any better, for you started in the Creation and then went to God. If you define God by the Creation, then you engage in idolatry. The Calvinists do the same.
So what is the option for us? What else can we do? Well its simple; we start with God. And that means God remains a mystery to us. As he says to Moses on the Mount from the midst of the burning bush "I am whoever I am." God remains real, everything else is a lie. That means we can forget ourselves, and we can forget the evil we see around us; God is God, everyone else is a liar. If anything, God is going to define us; we are not going to define God. And what do you know, this God must be the God of Creation, for without this God, "nothing that is would ever have been." And if we look to the creeds, suddenly it makes sense! "We believe in God the Father, maker of the Heavens and the Earth." What do you know, the the holy catholic and apostolic church knew what they were talking about! We aren't going to define God, but God will define us.
And so the question then becomes, how is this God revealed to us? How does the Creator enter into the Creation to bring the Creation into the good will and pleasure of the Creator? Well, you see, God the Father acts through the Son and through the Spirit. And what do you know, there is the Trinity. It isn't our attempt to grasp God, but it is our summation of how God has revealed Godself to us, through the Word and through the Spirit. And once again, as we look to the creeds, we find this simple presentation of what God has revealed to us. The "Trinity" and "Creator" are not dogmas by which we trap God into a form that we can understand; they are teachings, by which we transmit to others how God has revealed himself to us, a God who remains mysterious.
And once we are grounded in God (though mysterious he may be), then we can define the Creation. Rather than starting with the Creation and moving to God, we have started with God the Creator and moved into the Creation. And here we find that all that lives is sustained in God. Whether we are good and righteous, or corrupt and sinful, our life is held in God. And both "the righteous and the unrighteous" receive the blessings of God; the rain and the goods of the Creation.
The question becomes, which will be sustained over time. You see, when you say that God allows for evil, I am just as horrified by this God as I am of the Calvinist God, for the God that would allow a man to murder innocent babies, a God who wouldn't stop such an atrocity from happening though he had the power to do so, is not a good God. I have listened to the testimony of a Jewish man who endured the cruelties of the camps of Germany, and he told us of a horror where living babies were brought in by dump trucks. And the German soldiers proceeded to chuck the babies into the air and catch them on their bayonets like it was a game. To pretend that God just allows that to happen like the men have the power to twist God's Creation in such a way as to force God to change his plan so drastically? This is a God who is no God at all. He is simply another power that plays tag with other powers. If these men who treated babies so carelessly truly have a power that can sustain themselves in this Creation; if they are men that are without need of God, then they are a power far greater than the men who had simply been twisted and contorted beyond recognition through their actions. If we limit God based on the actions of these men, then this God is a powerless God, and a God who is no better in relating to the Creation as a bunch of warmongering people trying to relate with one another.
You see, God is a "relational" God, as you say, but he is a God who relates to humanity on God's terms, not on ours. We do not tie the hand of God by our actions. And if we believe we can, then we have become so arrogant as to think that the life we have is ours to live by our own will and desires. We must be shown that we are mortal, and that our life will be taken from us in the end, for those who try to sustain themselves end up loosing their life. Those who try to rise up in this world as if they were a power to contend with will meet their doom. Every Empire has a downfall; every tyrant ultimately dies. And the life they try to create, the distortion they bring on the true life of God, will come to an end. And what will remain is the Creation of God.
You want to see what God does with men who try to kill babies? How about we look at Pharaoh. You see, Pharaoh had his own will for the Creation, and he saw a threat to that plan when the Hebrews began to multiply beyond his control. And his decrees went out to try to stop this threat. He told the Midwives to kill the male babies; then he told the Hebrews to throw them in the river Nile; finally, he commanded his own people to do the dirty deed. But the great irony of the entire story is that the Pharaoh, in his mind bent on war and conquest, had seen the men as a threat to his dominion. What we discover in these beginning words of Exodus is that the women ultimately undermine the Pharaoh's plans. First it was the midwives who feared the Lord more than they feared Pharaoh. Then it was the mother of Moses and her daughter who worked against his plans. Finally, as if to created the greatest of ironies, the Pharaoh's own daughter pulls Moses out the river and raises him as her own child (and allows him to be nursed and cared for by his own mother).
You see, contrary to your thinking of God's plans being changed based on Pharaoh's whim, God's will continues to be followed in the midst of Pharaoh's arrogance. God had willed for the increase of his people, and gosh darn-it, Israel was going to increase. And it didn't matter that they had forgotten the God of their fathers; it didn't matter that Pharaoh's will came to odds with God's will. God was going to prevail, and he was going to do so through the people he had called (and through the faithful remnant).
Your view of God forgets that God does choose to work through certain people, and God will not change God's mind based on what the human being desires. As I have read through the stories of all the different people God has called through the history of Israel, I find very few who were willing to accept God's call (Mary and Joseph would be examples of the few); and I have yet to find anyone that was able to resist God's call (for God is quite persistent and very persuasive). God's plans are made manifest in this line of a handful of people, and it was going to come through them whether they liked it or not. I'm still astonished by the Abraham stories, for we couldn't find a man who tried to do more to thwart the will of God to bless him, and yet God to the very end will not relent.
We have to realize that the "will" we give to men is not like the will of God. The will of men can be thwarted, but when God speaks it's gonna happen. Men can attempt to dictate what they will do all they want, but their word does not become material always. But God's will does get accomplished, and in the way that God has ordained it.
We can talk about Adam and Eve, but we have to remember that 'Adam is being used in a very overarching manner in those first few chapters of the Old Testament (as are most of the characters), to talk about humanity in general. And in Christ, Adam (the second Adam) like the sons that God chooses throughout the Old Testament, is the one who receives God's favor, and who is truly made in God's image, who is the very image of God. We want to think that the first-born is the one deserving the blessing. God is the one who blesses the least in order that the greatest (from our perspective) might also be blessed. We are just too small to comprehend these great things, and when we are in the thick of things, we don't see it. But God does, and he is overjoyed when people will faithfully live according to his will, and not according to the will of others.
Peace,
Michael
:first: Thanks for the reminder of the proper prospective
I continue to have qualms with Open Theism because it continues to understand God from the perspective of the Creation. You continue to speak of a "personal" God, and that troubles me for a single reason: everyone wants a personal God. You continue to talk about the ancient and modern cultures and their views of the gods as being "impersonal," because their gods are a bunch of egotistical maniacs. I would have to agree with your assessment of their gods, but I do not agree that these gods are "impersonal".
You see, the gods of the ancient middle-east were some of the most personal gods around, because they would flock around their respective peoples and serve as patrons to them. And the people would serve them, not always out of fear, but because their patron god offered protection, gifts, and prosperity. The personal god becomes a god who relates to us on our terms.
The problem I have with this idea of a "personal" god is that it ultimately leads to idolatry, for the god who is intelligible to us is a god like us, a god made in our image. So when you talk about the "personal" god it makes me uneasy, because this language inevitably leads down the road of idolatry (and if Israel could engage in idolatry in its understanding of God's revelation to them, then we had better believe that it is a danger for us as well). Idolatry isn't simply setting up images of your god and worshiping the images; idolatry is an ideology of relationship between the gods and humanity, where humans define the relationship.
As soon as you define God as "personal," you are making an assumption that God could be something else. You see, in your descriptors of God you are fashioning the God who best serves you, molding him into shape until he is the perfect match for humanity. This would be great from an anthropologist's perspective (for he or she assumes that "God" is and has always been a construct of the human intelligence) but for a Christian this is horrific. If God is merely the object out of which we form an image of God, then our God is nothing more than an idol; he may not be fashioned from stone or wood, but he has become an idol nonetheless.
My answer to it is let God be God. Do not attempt to fashion an image of him, or to use his revelation to us in order to pin God down. God is God, and he remains a mystery to us. Those who attempt to understand God will ultimately engage in idolatry, and this is not acceptable. We must worship God in "spirit and in truth;" we do not worship the God who we understand.
Now you assume that because I have rejected Open Theism there is only one more option, and that is Calvinism. But I tell you, Calvinism is no better in its understanding of God, for it too has latched on to an idol of its own making. As I said before the god of our making, the god of our understanding is a god who is ultimately an idol. When we define the relationship, then it is idolatry, plain and simple. Calvinism has once again done that, for they have tried to understand God from the posibilities of Creation. Our God must be in control, and we see things that seem out of control, hence the things we see must be from God. It is wrong. To understand God based on the control God has over us, is like evaluating God as a king, and seeing wheather the king is truly king based on his control of his people. If God were like a human king, then we would be in trouble. But I know God does not rule like any other king, because the king is revealed in Christ, and he ruled like no other (from a cross).
You see, Godrulz, you are understanding God through the presence of evil (and I have read the first few pages of Sander's book The God Who Risks, and I see him doing the same thing. There is evil in the world and now we must understand God in terms of what we see. And because we understand freedom from liberal demacracy, we assume that a God who controlled evil would not be loving. Though I understand your outcries against the Calvinists and their "all-powerful" God, I hardly see your understanding of God as being any better, for you started in the Creation and then went to God. If you define God by the Creation, then you engage in idolatry. The Calvinists do the same.
So what is the option for us? What else can we do? Well its simple; we start with God. And that means God remains a mystery to us. As he says to Moses on the Mount from the midst of the burning bush "I am whoever I am." God remains real, everything else is a lie. That means we can forget ourselves, and we can forget the evil we see around us; God is God, everyone else is a liar. If anything, God is going to define us; we are not going to define God. And what do you know, this God must be the God of Creation, for without this God, "nothing that is would ever have been." And if we look to the creeds, suddenly it makes sense! "We believe in God the Father, maker of the Heavens and the Earth." What do you know, the the holy catholic and apostolic church knew what they were talking about! We aren't going to define God, but God will define us.
And so the question then becomes, how is this God revealed to us? How does the Creator enter into the Creation to bring the Creation into the good will and pleasure of the Creator? Well, you see, God the Father acts through the Son and through the Spirit. And what do you know, there is the Trinity. It isn't our attempt to grasp God, but it is our summation of how God has revealed Godself to us, through the Word and through the Spirit. And once again, as we look to the creeds, we find this simple presentation of what God has revealed to us. The "Trinity" and "Creator" are not dogmas by which we trap God into a form that we can understand; they are teachings, by which we transmit to others how God has revealed himself to us, a God who remains mysterious.
And once we are grounded in God (though mysterious he may be), then we can define the Creation. Rather than starting with the Creation and moving to God, we have started with God the Creator and moved into the Creation. And here we find that all that lives is sustained in God. Whether we are good and righteous, or corrupt and sinful, our life is held in God. And both "the righteous and the unrighteous" receive the blessings of God; the rain and the goods of the Creation.
The question becomes, which will be sustained over time. You see, when you say that God allows for evil, I am just as horrified by this God as I am of the Calvinist God, for the God that would allow a man to murder innocent babies, a God who wouldn't stop such an atrocity from happening though he had the power to do so, is not a good God. I have listened to the testimony of a Jewish man who endured the cruelties of the camps of Germany, and he told us of a horror where living babies were brought in by dump trucks. And the German soldiers proceeded to chuck the babies into the air and catch them on their bayonets like it was a game. To pretend that God just allows that to happen like the men have the power to twist God's Creation in such a way as to force God to change his plan so drastically? This is a God who is no God at all. He is simply another power that plays tag with other powers. If these men who treated babies so carelessly truly have a power that can sustain themselves in this Creation; if they are men that are without need of God, then they are a power far greater than the men who had simply been twisted and contorted beyond recognition through their actions. If we limit God based on the actions of these men, then this God is a powerless God, and a God who is no better in relating to the Creation as a bunch of warmongering people trying to relate with one another.
You see, God is a "relational" God, as you say, but he is a God who relates to humanity on God's terms, not on ours. We do not tie the hand of God by our actions. And if we believe we can, then we have become so arrogant as to think that the life we have is ours to live by our own will and desires. We must be shown that we are mortal, and that our life will be taken from us in the end, for those who try to sustain themselves end up loosing their life. Those who try to rise up in this world as if they were a power to contend with will meet their doom. Every Empire has a downfall; every tyrant ultimately dies. And the life they try to create, the distortion they bring on the true life of God, will come to an end. And what will remain is the Creation of God.
You want to see what God does with men who try to kill babies? How about we look at Pharaoh. You see, Pharaoh had his own will for the Creation, and he saw a threat to that plan when the Hebrews began to multiply beyond his control. And his decrees went out to try to stop this threat. He told the Midwives to kill the male babies; then he told the Hebrews to throw them in the river Nile; finally, he commanded his own people to do the dirty deed. But the great irony of the entire story is that the Pharaoh, in his mind bent on war and conquest, had seen the men as a threat to his dominion. What we discover in these beginning words of Exodus is that the women ultimately undermine the Pharaoh's plans. First it was the midwives who feared the Lord more than they feared Pharaoh. Then it was the mother of Moses and her daughter who worked against his plans. Finally, as if to created the greatest of ironies, the Pharaoh's own daughter pulls Moses out the river and raises him as her own child (and allows him to be nursed and cared for by his own mother).
You see, contrary to your thinking of God's plans being changed based on Pharaoh's whim, God's will continues to be followed in the midst of Pharaoh's arrogance. God had willed for the increase of his people, and gosh darn-it, Israel was going to increase. And it didn't matter that they had forgotten the God of their fathers; it didn't matter that Pharaoh's will came to odds with God's will. God was going to prevail, and he was going to do so through the people he had called (and through the faithful remnant).
Your view of God forgets that God does choose to work through certain people, and God will not change God's mind based on what the human being desires. As I have read through the stories of all the different people God has called through the history of Israel, I find very few who were willing to accept God's call (Mary and Joseph would be examples of the few); and I have yet to find anyone that was able to resist God's call (for God is quite persistent and very persuasive). God's plans are made manifest in this line of a handful of people, and it was going to come through them whether they liked it or not. I'm still astonished by the Abraham stories, for we couldn't find a man who tried to do more to thwart the will of God to bless him, and yet God to the very end will not relent.
We have to realize that the "will" we give to men is not like the will of God. The will of men can be thwarted, but when God speaks it's gonna happen. Men can attempt to dictate what they will do all they want, but their word does not become material always. But God's will does get accomplished, and in the way that God has ordained it.
We can talk about Adam and Eve, but we have to remember that 'Adam is being used in a very overarching manner in those first few chapters of the Old Testament (as are most of the characters), to talk about humanity in general. And in Christ, Adam (the second Adam) like the sons that God chooses throughout the Old Testament, is the one who receives God's favor, and who is truly made in God's image, who is the very image of God. We want to think that the first-born is the one deserving the blessing. God is the one who blesses the least in order that the greatest (from our perspective) might also be blessed. We are just too small to comprehend these great things, and when we are in the thick of things, we don't see it. But God does, and he is overjoyed when people will faithfully live according to his will, and not according to the will of others.
Peace,
Michael
:first: Thanks for the reminder of the proper prospective
