This is a very strong presentation. Open Theism is another one of those paradigms that enable us to take many plain statements in the Scriptures on their face value.
This put Calvinism to bed for me, gives me reason to pray and hope! There is hope that God's plan may just possibly be moved by his children's speaking to him in the way that my children speaking to me, moved me. Are we not created in his image?
@@dannymcmullan9375 well thought out response. I would consider myself to be a partial open theist as there are too many scripture that point to acts of free will.
@@dannymcmullan9375 I won't deny that open theism makes me feel better, but that's no reason to believe it. It's true that the scriptures don't speak in the clear explicit terms that we might prefer, so we're left to "do theology" if we are going to boil down what we believe in ways that regular people can understand. I think that you're constructing an either or model here that doesn't really reflect what we find in the scriptures. We do find that God is determined to accomplish His purposes, but we aren't given an exhaustive list of what those purposes are or an explicit explanation of what is included in the scope of His purposes. We also find that we are told to pray and that the prayers of a righteous man avails much. There are lots of if then statements in scripture connected to prayer. Much of that makes little sense if everything about the future is settled.
@@loobell3236 I'd say that nearly all open theists are "partial". I'm not sure I've ever encountered anyone who believes that all facts about the future remain unsettled. People may disagree over the degree to which the future remains unsettled, but the main debate is whether there are any future contingents or possibilities. Open theists say yes there are at least some, while pretty much all other Christian groups say no, that future possibilities do not really exist. Such people often still talk about the future in terms of if and maybe during ordinary conversation, but when it comes to theology they have to turn off the common sense part of their brain and ignore or dismiss large swathes of scripture.
@@dannymcmullan9375 because the prayer of a righteous man may move God to do things without which, he may not have done. i.e. act to influence your friend's choice towards a positive response. Without which [your prayer], God may chose not to exercise mercy and gives up your friend to his/her own ways. You assume God has already done everything possible for your friend. But in God's sovereign and autonomous will, he chooses whom he will have mercy and grace. It is wrongheaded to think that if God does not extend mercy or grace, he is less good. God has done enough for your friend and does not owe anything to anyone to do more. It is an erroneous understanding of love to think that God must have already done everything possible.
Wow this is mind blowing... what most helps me settle this is the element that God is infinitely intelligent and can there fore anticipate each possibility
Any and all cracks in the cement prison of many ancient doctrines is really appreciated... Light is coming in... And by the way, ideas can be prisons as much as any disease or worse. I didn't listen to this entire video, because I've got responsibilities, but it was refreshing....
Hello Greg Boyd, Eugene here. Think about Plato's immutability this way: Perfection means that a thing is what it is supposed to be. A static and un-moving thing is perfect only if it remains static and un-moving, while a moving thing is perfect only if it remains moving. God is a moving "THING" PERSON and would become imperfect only if the moving, i.e., living, stopped.
“And my speech and my preaching were not with persuasive words of human wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power, that your faith should not be in the wisdom of men but in the power of God.” 1 Corinthians 2:4-5 - NKJV
I see that things genuinely hang on me because the sovereign God uses me as one of His means to get stuff done, stuff which He had preordained to get done.
Thinking this way can really change everything. Don't take my word for it. Check it out for yourself and see what the Bible says. I would like to offer one insight that helped me though. In every Biblical controversy I have studied I found that the main Biblical reason that the controversy continues to exist is that there are apparent tensions in the scripture on the subject. In this case there are various statements throughout scripture that affirm the awesome extent of God's power, authority, knowledge, wisdom, foreknowlege etc, as well as seemingly sweeping statements about what God can and will accomplish. And, there are also lots of passages that seem to assume that people have lots of autonomy, that God talks about the future in conditional terms, that God changes His mind, that lots of things happen that God was opposed to and apparently did not want to occur, and various other reasons to think that the future is unsettled in many respects and that God has given people the power to affect what will happen. In this particular controversy I think the main thing to consider that helps make sense of this tension is to notice how wide scope of the verses that talk about God's power and determinations is. Consider Isaiah 46:10 and Ephesians 1:14. They say "I make known the end from the beginning, from ancient times, what is still to come. I say, ‘My purpose will stand, and I will do all that I please'" and "In him we were also chosen, having been predestined according to the plan of him who works out everything in conformity with the purpose of his will". There are two very important clauses in these verses that often get ignored. They are "all that I please" and "the purpose of his will". People often just assume that since God had the power to do whatever He wanted to do and that He could have created a world in which everything was predetermined that He did do that and/or that now that things are going along as they are if He wants things to go this or that way that somehow He dynamically and inevitably determined how everything would go. There is a lot of double speak in this area especially by Molinists and to a slightly lesser extent by people who believe in simple foreknowledge. And there is a lot of dogmatism by people on the determinist end of the spectrum. I will just say that we need not infer that it was the purpose of God's will to control everything, and that we should remember that there are things that are impossible for God. For example we are told it is impossible for Him to lie in Hebrews 6:18 and that He cannot be tempted by evil in James 1:13. These are not negative qualities and apparently not something God has the option of choosing for Himself. One logical implication of the idea that God cannot lie is that He cannot make a commitment and fail to keep it and He cannot really give something and then take it away in a way that conflicts with the terms of His original gift (Romans 11:29). So, if God gave people authority over the earth (Genesis 1:26-30, Hebrews 2:6-9) for some period of time He apparently can't revoke the power He delegated unilaterally without in effect lying. Much of His frustration and other features of the Bible can be explained by this. In every controversy that I have been able to reach a confident conclusion about how to resolve the controversy I found that one perspective would have adequate answers for all the claims made by opposing views that make at least good enough sense within their own view. I have not found that to be the case for the competing views. One really good way to get a feel for when a view may have a real weakness is to closely examine how they respond to the passages that people with opposing views offer as their own evidence. While what people say about their own view is certainly important, it's usually easy to see why they would think what they think based on the reasons they offer. Seeing if the responses they give to opposing views are reasonable is not always easy. In some controversies you may find that people will almost completely ignore the arguments of a particular opposing view, that they will dismiss them, or that they will just declare that they are heretics. Notice that those objections are not arguments that show how the verses the supposed heretics cite actually make sense in the view of the view of the person calling heresy. Cries of heresy are often the only response people with weak arguments can give, so they say it loud. Sometimes it's the very thing that people scream heresy about the loudest that fits the scriptures best. In general I have found that there will be one group who adequately answers every scriptural objection to their view in a way that makes sense and usually the other groups tend to ignore the positive arguments made by that same group the most. When you find that combination there is a good chance you have found the right answer to the question. I think their arguments mostly get ignored or that people will just go back to their own go to proof texts because there aren't any good arguments against their main positive proofs. You might find some of the videos I made on this subject and others to be worth your while. Some of them are here on my personal channel, but they are all on my other channel. www.youtube.com/@understandingperspectives9361/playlists
Jeremiah 32:35 (KJV) And they built the high places of Baal, which are in the valley of the son of Hinnom, to cause their sons and their daughters to pass through the fire unto Molech; which I commanded them not, neither came it into my mind, that they should do this abomination, to cause Judah to sin.
😎 That verse means that the act or idea of sacrificing one's son to Baal did not come into God's mind, it came from the Israelites'. It doesn't mean that God did not know that the Israelites would do such human sacrifice.
@@calebjushua9252 open theism doesn’t say that God didn’t know, It just forces determinists to face the fact that the god of the Bible has a character of love and would never be the author of such an atrocity as determinism states that he is.
@@atyt11 I don't know what's your point. But, what I am trying to say is that instructing those Israelites to sacrifice their babies to Baal did not come to God's mind.
@@calebjushua9252 My point was I agree with you. God was not the author of the evil... Because He knows everything that is knowable. Molech was one of the Free choices available to humans sin-abled nature. Non -Open-theists strawman that open-theists think "God does not know" that is because they don't have a real rebuttle to what is so obvious in the Bible. God Knows ALL that is possible to know. God finds that real relationship with real image bearers is worth it. Playing barbies with creatures has ZERO value to God.
Open Theists believe that God knows every future possibility as well as we could know a certainty, and that He has a plan for any and every outcome of every future free decision. It's not like He is caught off guard, or not prepared. * The Lord frequently changes his mind in the light of changing circumstances, or as a result of prayer (Exod. 32:14; Num. 14:12-20; Deut. 9:13-14, 18-20, 25; 1 Sam. 2:27-36; 2 Kings 20:1-7; 1 Chron. 21:15; Jer. 26:19; Ezek. 20:5-22; Amos 7:1-6; Jonah 1:2; 3:2, 4-10). At other times he explicitly states that he will change his mind if circumstances change (Jer. 18:7-11; 26:2-3; Ezek. 33:13-15). This willingness to change is portrayed as one of God’s attributes of greatness (Joel 2:13-14; Jonah 4:2). If the future were exhaustively and eternally settled, as classical theism teaches, it would be impossible for God to genuinely change his mind about matters. * God sometimes expresses regret and disappointment over how things turned out-even occasionally over things that resulted from his own will. (Gen. 6:5-6; 1 Sam. 15:10, 35; Ezek. 22:29-31). If the future was exhaustively and eternally settled, it would be impossible for God to genuinely regret how some of his own decisions turned out. * At other times God tells us that he is surprised at how things turned out because he expected a different outcome (Isa. 5:3-7; Jer. 3:67; 19-20). If the future was eternally and exhaustively settled, everything would come to pass exactly as God eternally knew or determined it to be. * The Lord frequently tests his people to find out whether they’ll remain faithful to him (Gen. 22:12; Exod. 16:4; Deut. 8:2; 13:1-3; Judges 2:20-3:5; 2 Chron. 32:31). If the future were eternally and exhaustively settled, God could not genuinely say he tests people “to know” whether they’ll be faithful or not. * The Lord sometimes asks non-rhetorical questions about the future (Num. 14:11; Hos. 8:5) and speaks to people in terms of what may or may not happen (Exod. 3:18-4:9; 13:17; Jer. 38:17-18, 20-21, 23; Ezek. 12:1-3). If the future was exhaustively and eternally settled, God could never genuine speak about the future in terms of what “may” or “may not” happen.
Michael, great response. I'm becoming more sympathetic to the open view. However, as I'm sure you're well aware, there are many biblical verses which seem to suggest God has predestined men, even in terms of salvation. Both you with your post and Greg Boyd give powerful positive arguments for the open view. However, how do you defend the negative arguments against it based on scripture - the obvious culprits being Romans 9, Ephesians 1:4, 2 Timothy 2:10, Romans 8:29, 1 Peter 1:2, 1 Peter 1:20, etc. I'm not asking you to defend each and every one of these verses. I'm more interested in a general defense (unless you want to go through each verse ;) ). Or could you point me to a resource that does defend the open view in spite of seemingly contradictory verses such as these?
Hm. This is interesting to me as a computer programmer and to think about how God is the creator of cause and effect Himself. Much to think on. Appreciated.
Hello Greg Boyd, Eugene here. I was attending NOBTS IN New Orleans in 1972 when I wrote my first paper on this subject. Possibilities was my view then but I left without convincing anyone. I have left the Baptist and have changed my views on a number of doctrines. I was glad to find you several years ago. By the way, the one and only God that Jesus is serving, is now my one and only God. I gave up the false god that Jesus never told me about. Like becoming and open theist, it has been somewhat costly. It made no sense that the god the body of Christ worshiped, was a different god, a three person god, while the head, Christ, worshiped a single person God. That ain't right, so I decided not to ask Jesus to change but to change myself, and I did. Jesus's God, Our Father in heaven is now my only God. Now that seem right. Thanks for all you do for us.
Hi Mr Lanzl, thanks for speaking up. "The Truth shall set you free..." You're not alone, brother. The cost you faced will be returned as a great reward from the One God you worship.
scripture is clear, God was in Christ reconciling the world unto Himself. God was manifest in the flesh and dwelt among us. He shall be called Emanuel ... meaning God with us. The word was in the beginning WITH GOD, and the word WAS GOD. Jesus made it clear that He is distinct from the Father, but is equal with Him. All things were created by Him, through Him, and for Him. Denying that Jesus is God is a damnable heresy and demonstrates you are still blind and lost. You are likely a Jehovah's false Witness or Mormon based on your words. I hope you snapped out of it
@@bigdogboos1 Hello Big Dog, Eugene here. Think of a hand in a glove. We watch as the gloves remove the bad heart and lungs from a near dead man and then replace them with a healthy heart and lungs. We never see the actual hands, only the gloves. The doctors hands were in the gloves. If you saw the gloves you essentially saw the hands. God was in someone who was not God. That someone was the man, Yeshua Messiah. When that man told the lame man "Your sins are forgiven" he was not the one forgiving, he was telling the lame man what God had told him to say. God told Moses that He would raise up a man like Moses and put HIs words in his mouth. That is what Jesus (Yeshua) told us he was doing. Your guess as to who I am is wrong. I am an "Arrogant Son Of Baptist" or Arrogant SOB if you please. Just as you do not understand me, you do not understand scripture. You are doing what I did for 50 years when it comes to reading the Bible. I first came to believe Baptist theology that I learned from hymns, country songs such as "I'll fly away" and preaching. Then when I read my KJV Bible, I was not trying to learn theology, I was trying to find passages that supported what I already believed. I did not know about the difficulty of translating truth from one language to another and that mistakes were possible, and in fact happened. Even when the translation is correct, the understanding can be misunderstood. That is what happened to the gospel of John and many other passages. The "logos" of John one, is not a person, it is what God thinks and says. Everywhere in scripture we read that God's logos came TO someone. Never does God's logos (word) become someone. God's logos/word came to Jesus and to his disciples and dwelt/tabernacled IN them. Having God's word "dwell among us" would do no one any good, it must dwell in us. That is what the Greek really says. The "In the beginning" of John's gospel is the beginning of the ministry of Jesus. The disciples are said to have been with Jesus from the beginning in John's gospel. Jesus is the second Adam. Genesis is the first beginning and records the first Adam. John is the second beginning and records the second Adam. There are two very different historical periods, the law and grace. Moses and Jesus. Some think of two testament, two dispensations or two plans of God. The first Adam begins the first period and the second Adam begins the second beginning. Regarding the theology that Jesus created the universe of Genesis is based on a mistranslation of the word "dia" as "by" when it should be "for the sake of". Read the passage in Greek and see how much more sense it makes. It was clear to me when I was forced to face the fact that Jesus never told me about a triune god, he never worshiped a triune god and he is not sitting beside a triune god, that If I want to FOLLOW JESUS I must agree to make Jesus' God MY God. I can't have a different God than the one I claim to follow. None of the proof text that you will send me to will be new to me. None of them teach a triune god, period. NONE. You will find in your own bible that God is not a anthropoid nor the son of an anthropoid. Jesus is both an anthropoid and the son of an anthropoid. God cannot die and Jesus said that he was dead. It is impossible for three god persons to be one God Essence and the one God Essence to be the God of Joel. Compare what Joel says and what Peter says about their one God. When you judge me as being wrong you also judge Joel and Peter as being wrong about who the only one God is. If Jesus' God is not your only God you worship a false god. It is that simple, a child can understand that. You do not and you cannot understand your triune god. That theology is an incomprehensible divine mystery too complicated for your little finite mind to grasp. Compare that to Jesus' "Our Father who art in Heaven" and choose who you will serve, the god of Greek myth or the God of Jesus.
@@bigdogboos1 Hey Big Dog. I believe it was Jesus who said "The Father is greater than I" or "The Father is greater than all." So they aren't equal. See 1 Corinthians 15:28, the Son is subject to the Father. Also, how many gods do you have? I have one, King David has one, and Jesus has one. And I have "one mediator between God and man, the Human Messiah Jesus" [1 Timothy 2:5]. Funny though, there are a few creedish statements in the bible regarding necessary faith [1 Tim 2:5, Eph 4:4-8, John 17:3, 1 Cor 8:6, Rom 10:6] and they all have One God [the Father] and one Lord, the man Jesus Christ. But no such statements about Jesus' pre-existence or divinity. Interesting, right? I'll stick to the bible, and I hope you do too. :)
The story at the end is so powerful. It's also shockingly similar to my story, but in different stages at different times (missions and a failed marriage, also a church split, all while praying hard from childhood till then for xyz and God's will). I was devastated... then devastated again, then again. I never fully got back on the horse and now I try to live a "normal life" but having given so much time to the life less ordinary I'm pretty bad at it. Job is mediocre, earnings are adequate, second marriage and a dog... no kids. I have no idea how to really fully move forward. I became an open theist for several reasons, both logical and scriptural but also because it made the most sense of my situation, and it helped me not lose my faith as I felt so betrayed by God. The trouble is I never got my idealism back. I'm still afraid of failure. I still don't trust like I should. I don't want to go overseas again for missions, at least not as a career, I think I should teach. But every open door seems to close and I feel stuck in limbo forever. I don't know what to do. Why am I writing this? I'm not sure... maybe as a kind of prayer, outloud. A call for help... for renewal, for favor, for change. But I'm still afraid I'm going to screw it all up.
Ravissary79, it sounds like you've had a hard time with various issues and don't know what to do. While I don't know the particulars I can sympathize with your struggle. I've had my own set of problems, and sometimes I feel a little discourages about the direction and progress of my life. I take comfort in knowing that God can use suffering in our lives to produce patience and maturity, that even Jesus was perfected through what he suffered, and that the suffering we endure should be received as discipline from God. (James 1: Hebrews 5:7-9, Hebrews 12). I'm not suggesting that God is causing all our pain and suffering in order to teach us a lesson, but I do think it is the case that all suffering give us an opportunity for growth (at least in our patience). My 9 year old daughter died in her sleep last September. I don't think that God killed her to teach me a lesson, but her death has brought much suffering to us and along with it opportunities to grow in patience and endurance. I was looking for opportunities to partner with God through what followed her death, and at times I thought I was really in the middle of what God had in mind for me to do, but I was lied to and betrayed by a partner in ministry, so now I'm feeling a little aimless since I don't have a clear direction to go in terms of Christian ministry. I don't really know what to do either in a long term sense, but each day I face little opportunities and I try to take advantage of them and remain faithful. I pray that God will give us both clearer direction for the future and that in the mean time He will empower us to live in faithful obedience. May God bless you. www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=james+1%3A2-5%2C+hebrews+5%3A7-9%2C+hebrews+12&version=NIV
@@paulmussell7943 Amen to that brother. Since I write that post God opened a door for me in a little local church and I teach a simple narrative based inductive type bible study on Tuesday nights, Genesis: 1 chapter a week. I love it. I've tried to be faithful and God has helped me through, but that's it so far... I'm still in a dead end job, I still have no idea about the future, but God is slowly re-teaching me to trust again. Thank you for your reply. It touched my heart.
@@ravissary79 I'm glad to hear you're learning to truth God again. I understand too well how we can blame God for the bad things that happen to us. Getting to the point where you trust His heart even if you don't have a good answer for why is huge. I find that open theism is a big part of being able to do that. It's possible to trust Him with any belief about the future I suppose, but none of the other systems make any sense to me and they each fail to account for part of the scriptural data. You might be interested in my other channel. I've got some videos about open theism and other views there as well. th-cam.com/channels/pl2wvgPSToBOLg10bCoIsg.html
@@paulmussell7943 thank you so much. Yes, trusting God as a PERSON in Open Theism is frantically different than as a first cause or a fixed principle of being in there "systems". The fact is I've never lost faith in God as the good God who rules as he pleases, but I had trouble reconciling the nature how his divine will shakes out with my own choices and the perception of divine hiddeness... thinking I knew what to do, then rolling nothing but snake eyes and getting nothing when I sought guidance. I suppose it's like a child learning to not be so dependant on their parent aways kissing their booboos. It's just that I'm so bad at doing so much of life on my own. I learned these lessons SO LATE in life and it's hard to just "let go" and "let God" as the cliche goes, when I know I have to be responsible and I've come to terms with the fact that's it's NOT A given that he has to clean up my messes. Yes he works it all together for our good, but that's a lot simpler than we think. Love is eternal, if we persevere and suffer and then die but obtain our eternal reward we still win even without some divinely favored poetic justice in our natural lifetime. We aren't promised a get out of jail free card... a miraculous answer to prayer, when it all goes so horribly wrong. People's lives are ruined every single day and who knows how many are born again? The faithful even starve to death in the third world, or are tortured without rescue. Ecclesiastes is TRUE. The faithful rarely obtain justice in this life. The wicked often go unpunished in the here and now. This doesn't make God unjust... but it does make it hard to hope he'll make an exception for me... which hurts my prayer life. But I still sometimes try because you never know. I KNOW he hears me. I KNOW he does right by me, and HAS interceded before. But my confidence in any given situation x... I dunno. I'm still struggling with that. Like the hard hearted Israelites I want a sign. And maybe I need to just trust in what little I DO know till I know more. That's faith, not necessarily believing you get what you want... but trusting He's still good even if you don't. It's so hard to see, but on another level, once you see it you can only unsee it in blasphemy. Not one or his words will return void. I know that.
It's disturbing to me how people (like this man) can introduce new doctrines, and do it with such ease and even jokingly not being bothered at the thought of the negative effect it would cause to the church, as if we were planning a new business strategy for a secular company.
In Gethsemane, the Savior was not asking that it might be possible not to die on the cross, but that it might be possible for Him to be spared some of the sufferings, both before and during the crucifixion. It would have been possible for Him to have been spared some of the tortures, or to have had some of the pain limited or alleviated.
@@AnHebrewChild There can be no doubt that the Saviour was totally committed to dying for our sins as necessary for our salvation, being the human incarnation of God, He was fully resolved to do that. What was not absolutely essential for that atonement was all the horrific suffering which He would endure, and it was surely possible to not have to undergo all of that, or for it to be mitigated. Yet the human will conformed fully to the divine will in accepting that cup of suffering in full.
Check out Roger Forster's 'God's Strategy in Human History', a quite brilliant defence of free will and probably the best Christian book I've ever read.
1. Is the choice of a Truely FREE agent knowable before the choice is made.? Does it exist? 2. Can you have a REAL relationship without REAL FREEwill choices? 3. Does God want to be in Real relationship with His image bearers? 4. Does the Father know Jesus's question before he asks it? A. God knows all our choices before we exist and is just playing barbie dolls with us. or B. God is so unimaginably powerful He can get His perfect sovereign will done while allowing Truly Free creatures to be in a REAL relationship with Him.
To be honest his argument from God regretting backfires against if he is consistent. Since per his claim God knows every possibility as a certainty then God cannot genuinely regret even his view. After all why would God regret over a possibility that became actualized when he not only knew it could happen, but knew it as a certainty, meaning knew that it would certainly happen? So he is speaking out of both sides of his mouth.
God knows all theoretical possible futures this the events must take place then actualized then God acts with the actualized events. God responds to what actually happens.
The argument is that God knows every possibility as deeply AS IF it were a certainty. This meaning he knows all the ins and outs of the decisions his creatures can make. This does not mean he can't genuinely experience regret it if a possible decision or outcome that is particularly bad comes to pass. I've seen people make this argument and it is a very weak criticism.
@@BecketTheHymnist Indeed, even in my very limited wisdom, i can foresee certain failures and still be disappointed when it becomes reality. People just can't accept the Bible speaks of God as having failed expectations, and being disappointed by them.
To even suggest that God doesn’t know every single thing that will ever happen feels like heresy. Well... sometimes the heretic is right... ... and they burn him at the stake.
The issue is really sovereignty. Open Theism declares God's knowledge is so complete of all potential that he never sacrifices sovereignty even if he allows for free agency of others.
@@Hambone3773 point 1) The bible never actually says God is "sovereign". Not once, only the new bible versions add that in there to give meaning when the original text does not say it. Point 2) Sovereignty has been bastardized by calvinists. It does not mean controlling all things all the time. It simply means having all authority over a realm. God is completely sovereign over his creation, and is "in control", but he does NOT "control all things/choices".
@@bigdogboos1 The Bible implies God is sovereign. To say God is "in control" is the same thing as saying God is Sovereign. A title such as "King of Kings and Lord of Lords" or saying "God knows the beginning from the end" is a declaration of control for which the English word is "Sovereign". So your first point seems to be semantical only. Your second point I already agree with which is why I lean toward an Open Theism interpretation of scripture. It just makes better sense of the Biblical claims about how God operates.
Calvinism is the most wicked thing. Idk how anyone can claim to reject it and think in their mind that a Calvinist can have salvation. It truly boggles my mind as their very prideful doctrines reject everything that biblical salvation is.
The only way one is coming to it exegetically in my opinion is if they 1.) use less than 1% of the bible. 2.) use wrongful unscriptural definitions to their terms.
@@VaughnMaleckiThanks for sharing your thoughts. If I may, here are a few of my own: RE condemning those who espouse Calvinist beliefs, I'd be careful with this kind of thinking. I would say that it's not entirely right to charge a man for wickedness and declare him 'unsaved' based upon certain logical outgrowths of his belief structure. Most pertinently because he or she may not be cognizant of all the implications of his or her beliefs. None of us are. I have Calvinist family & friends who just seem to want to affirm that "all redemption is of God, and all damnation is of man. That salvation is of the Lord." In their own limited understanding of God, they see the 'doctrines of grace' as the belief set that best helps uphold this affirmation. Some are the 'frozen chosen,' but others are zealous that God receive all the credit for their salvation, and they none of it. They see traditional Reformed theology as the surest route to get there. Many of these people are kind-hearted to the stranger and warmly evangelistic. We all have incomplete, even distorted, ideas of the Divine. Blind spots. Some views I hold no doubt have pernicious implications, _down stream._ If I was aware of these blind spots, they wouldn't be blind spots! I would wager that the same holds true for others reading this, including you. Id be careful not to conceive of Calvinistic _people_ as the embodiment of Calvinistic _theology,_ especially not as it is sometimes caricatured by its detractors. I'd be careful not to uniformly judge the souls of all who confess Calvinistic beliefs as unsaved. _For with what measure we mete,_ he warned us, _it shall be measured to us again._ > Shalom
Not really. In Calvinism all things are determined. In Open Theism God can work all things together for the good of those who love him, but he doesn't control all of the things he works together. Evil isn't preplanned but is accounted for. People really can do A or B and God typically doesn't control to produce A or B, but he understands how to arrive at HIS end using either A or B.
I think you could have made the argument stronger by talking about the idea of justice. Heaven and Hell are consequential. Crime and punishment and reward and privilege are contingent. You sort of included it in your practical consideration in point 5 but you could have dug deeper with justice passages.
What ever YAHWEH as spoke is for our sake, for He creates the day everything there in. when man "creature" tries to put himself above God from the day bound creation, Ever learning and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth, putting the creature before the creator who gives everything, on the inside and outside, from the mind and the space the mind thinks in and the doors opened in the mind and the paths thereby, to the ground we are allowed to walk on, knowing not there being judged in there arrogant, self worship, high mindedness, inwardly and outwardly not giving the Glory nor even thanks to God, for God as no respect of persons for the flesh cannot please him, nor the mind set on the flesh to destruction. God is a Spirit: and they that worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth.
I don't really know when this took place. It's been several years ago now. It used to be that this presentation was cut up into a bunch of short clips on youtube so I downloaded them edited them together and reposted it.
A thought I had about God's frustration "looking for" a prayer warrior. Is it possible that the story is putting it in human terms, so the people reading the story would have an inking what it is like for God? God wasn't REALLY looking for anything, because he already knew all about it (i.e. there was never a prayer warrior, and never going to be one, to save Israel in the time of Ezekiel) but he wanted to get it across how FRUSTRATING it was for him to not find what he is looking for or needs. Just a thought. Excellent presentation. I've been wanting to find out more about Open Theism, and this was superb!
I'm glad you enjoyed the video. I think this is one of the best resources I have found on the subject. While all open theists agree that the future is to some degree unsettled, there are different philosophical approaches to making sense out of the data. The most articulate and well laid out comparison of the different approaches to open theism I have come across is in this paper. Some of it is pretty technical and it is kind of dense in that it includes a lot of information in relatively few words, but it's pretty understandable and I think it is a really helpful analysis. I haven't spoken to the author of this paper about doing an interview, but I have met him and I think he would be willing to record an interview once I've had time to go through the material again and put some questions together. I'll post it on my channel if I can get him to agree. trinities.org/dale/threeroads.pdf
One of the many problems with this man and his presentation is that we know for a fact that open theism is wrong. God knows the future because He has ordained absolutely everything without exception. In Ephesians 1:11, we see that God “works all things according to the counsel of His will.” This “all things,” according to verse 10 includes all things in the heavens and all things on the earth. And according to Colossians 1:16, this “all things” both in the heavens and on earth includes all things “visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities,” so then it isn't just physical things, but also actions, circumstances, and even the very thoughts and wills of men (Cf. Psalm 105:25, Revelation 17:17), including the evil actions of men (Cf. 2 Samuel 12:11-12). The word translated into English as “work” is the transitive verb “ἐνεργέω," which, as a transitive verb, it has a direct object (“all things”) and it means “to effect” that direct object. Since all “effects” must have a sufficient cause, this passage quite literally makes God the ultimate cause of all things in heaven and on earth. The same transitive verb construction is seen in Ephesians 1:19, 1 Corinthians 12:6, 11, Galatians 3:5, Philippians 2:13; see Thayer’s, pg. 215. God’s ordination of whatsoever comes to pass often goes by the term “Sovereignty of God,” but also by some as “Exhaustive Divine Determinism.” Note that the definition of “Determine” is “cause something to occur in a particular way;” something that Paul explains that God does for all things in heaven and on earth (Cf. Romans 11:36). While creatures are indeed responsible agents of causation, the notion of “free will” (self-determination) did not have its genesis in scripture, but in Stoic philosophy, and it entered into Christian thinking through the teachings of Irenaeus, Clement, and finally, Origen (“A Free Will: Origins of the Notion in Ancient Thought,” by Michael Frede). So, all of those passages in scripture that got him started thinking in a new direction most assuredly do not mean what he thinks that they mean.
In every Biblical controversy I have studied I found that the main Biblical reason that the controversy continues to exist is that there are apparent tensions in the scripture on the subject. In this case there are various statements throughout scripture that affirm the awesome extent of God's power, authority, knowledge, wisdom, foreknowlege etc, as well as seemingly sweeping statements about what God can and will accomplish. And, there are also lots of passages that seem to assume that people have lots of autonomy, that God talks about the future in conditional terms, that God changes His mind, that lots of things happen that God was opposed to and apparently did not want to occur, and various other reasons to think that the future is unsettled in many respects and that God has given people the power to affect what will happen. In this particular controversy I think the main thing to consider that helps make sense of this tension is to notice how wide scope of the verses that talk about God's power and determinations is. Consider Isaiah 46:10 and Ephesians 1:14. They say "I make known the end from the beginning, from ancient times, what is still to come. I say, ‘My purpose will stand, and I will do all that I please'" and "In him we were also chosen, having been predestined according to the plan of him who works out everything in conformity with the purpose of his will". There are two very important clauses in these verses that often get ignored. They are "all that I please" and "the purpose of his will". People often just assume that since God had the power to do whatever He wanted to do and that He could have created a world in which everything was predetermined that He did do that and/or that now that things are going along as they are if He wants things to go this or that way that somehow He dynamically and inevitably determined how everything would go. There is a lot of double speak in this area especially by Molinists and to a slightly lesser extent by people who believe in simple foreknowledge. And there is a lot of dogmatism by people on the determinist end of the spectrum. I will just say that we need not infer that it was the purpose of God's will to control everything, and that we should remember that there are things that are impossible for God. For example we are told it is impossible for Him to lie in Hebrews 6:18 and that He cannot be tempted by evil in James 1:13. These are not negative qualities and apparently not something God has the option of choosing for Himself. One logical implication of the idea that God cannot lie is that He cannot make a commitment and fail to keep it and He cannot really give something and then take it away in a way that conflicts with the terms of His original gift (Romans 11:29). So, if God gave people authority over the earth (Genesis 1:26-30, Hebrews 2:6-9) for some period of time He apparently can't revoke the power He delegated unilaterally without in effect lying. Much of His frustration and other features of the Bible can be explained by this.
When you talk of Abraham being prevented from sacrificing Issac, you're not doing a close reading of the text. Who said to Abraham, "Now I know that you fear God..."? (Genesis 22:12). If it was God, why didn't he say, "Now I know that you fear Me."?
Also.... If we are to take the story at face value then what did this test prove or ensure? Abraham could have trusted God in this moment or just done what he did out of fear but tomorrow he rethinks his position and decides to never do that again. If God is unaware of the future then no test ensures anything and becomes meaningless.
When Jesus then lifted up his eyes, and saw a great company come unto him, he saith unto Philip, Whence shall we buy bread, that these may eat? And this he said to prove him: for he himself knew what he would do. John 6:5-6
Why is it better that God create with the risk that some would be damned rather than the certainty? Open Theism doesn't get you off the hook. It just makes God look reckless.
That's a good question. I am persuaded that the scripture teach that the future is partly open. I think this is an important piece of making sense of the problem of hell, evil, and suffering, but it certainly doesn't fully answer the question. I don't know for sure what you mean by damned, but since the most common belief about hell today is that God will torture the wicked forever in fire I would not be surprised if that is what you think about that subject. I would encourage you to consider the possibility that you have inherited a mistaken view of that subject and investigate that issue for yourself. I have another channel with some videos dedicated to the purpose of explaining controversies from various perspectives. I have a series about hell there that you might find interesting. This is a link to that playlist. th-cam.com/play/PL3c6ubh1HrRgFu0_zyObJ1XkZ-Cxz39RC.html The question about suffering and evil is a harder and much broader issue than the question of hell. I have some thoughts about it, but I haven't prepared a presentation of my own on the subject. However, I would highly recommend listening to this series on the subject. It is the best thing I've heard about this by far. restitutio.org/2020/10/22/362-why-god-allows-suffering-1-brandon-duke/ restitutio.org/2020/10/29/363-why-god-allows-suffering-2-brandon-duke/ These two episodes are good too. Another person who disagrees with some of the premises in the first two episodes raises some objections and they have a really good conversation about them. restitutio.org/2020/11/05/364-challenging-soul-making-theodicy-1-brandon-duke-jerry-wierwille/ restitutio.org/2020/11/12/365-challenging-soul-making-theodicy-2-brandon-duke-jerry-wierwille/ Thanks for watching. I hope you find this material to be helpful.
You call it reckless that we dont make our own decisions,, ? So you're saying when a child is raped,, it's just as God has planned?? I don't and wouldn't, follow a God that causes sadistic things to happen!,,.. And also that someone be punished for something they themselves had no control over?,,, talk about a very unfair and actually evil God your following,,,,,might as well call him Satan,,,
Believing that some things are available for me to decide does not make me an open theist. You have to ask why people decide what they decide, and the omniscient, omnismart, omnipotent God is ultimately behind those choices.
I understand your concern but I think you misunderstand Open Theism. Open Theism believes that EVERY future possibility God knows as well as if it were certain. Open Theists to not believe that God is caught off guard or unprepared. These are the grounds for Open Theism: * The Lord frequently changes his mind in the light of changing circumstances, or as a result of prayer (Exod. 32:14; Num. 14:12-20; Deut. 9:13-14, 18-20, 25; 1 Sam. 2:27-36; 2 Kings 20:1-7; 1 Chron. 21:15; Jer. 26:19; Ezek. 20:5-22; Amos 7:1-6; Jonah 1:2; 3:2, 4-10). At other times he explicitly states that he will change his mind if circumstances change (Jer. 18:7-11; 26:2-3; Ezek. 33:13-15). This willingness to change is portrayed as one of God’s attributes of greatness (Joel 2:13-14; Jonah 4:2). If the future were exhaustively and eternally settled, as classical theism teaches, it would be impossible for God to genuinely change his mind about matters. * God sometimes expresses regret and disappointment over how things turned out-even occasionally over things that resulted from his own will. (Gen. 6:5-6; 1 Sam. 15:10, 35; Ezek. 22:29-31). If the future was exhaustively and eternally settled, it would be impossible for God to genuinely regret how some of his own decisions turned out. * At other times God tells us that he is surprised at how things turned out because he expected a different outcome (Isa. 5:3-7; Jer. 3:67; 19-20). If the future was eternally and exhaustively settled, everything would come to pass exactly as God eternally knew or determined it to be. * The Lord frequently tests his people to find out whether they’ll remain faithful to him (Gen. 22:12; Exod. 16:4; Deut. 8:2; 13:1-3; Judges 2:20-3:5; 2 Chron. 32:31). If the future were eternally and exhaustively settled, God could not genuinely say he tests people “to know” whether they’ll be faithful or not. * The Lord sometimes asks non-rhetorical questions about the future (Num. 14:11; Hos. 8:5) and speaks to people in terms of what may or may not happen (Exod. 3:18-4:9; 13:17; Jer. 38:17-18, 20-21, 23; Ezek. 12:1-3). If the future was exhaustively and eternally settled, God could never genuine speak about the future in terms of what “may” or “may not” happen.
Hmm, Exodus 13:17 says "When Pharaoh let the people go, God did not lead them by way of the land of the Philistines, although that was near. For God said, 'Lest the people change their minds when they see war and return to Egypt.' (ESV) You hang a lot on 'lest', as though that's some indicator of probability, about which God isn't certain. I see no uncertainty in this verse.
If God knew all possibilities as if they were certainties, why would he regret the human race becoming almost wholly evil. Did he not anticipate and have a plan to advance from there? I guess he could regret that they made choices that mandated the flood to fix things. But why would He regret His own past actions?
why is it illogical? Suppose even me in my finite wisdom knowing that my son will flunk his studies, being mentally prepared for this outcome. And even prepared a job for him in my company. Is it illogical to feel disappointment when I hear of his failure? When that possibility becomes reality. Furthermore, in the realm of possibilities, not all possibilities are equal. Some possibilies are more probable than others. This leads to expectations. Disappointments and regrets are simply failed expectations.
No Tim. An honest parent knows there are many behavioral choices their child could make, some unacceptable and upsetting to the parent. Yet the parent does not lock the child in their room or tie the child's hands.
@@alextz2336you make a good example, but it works just as well for the traditional theist, even the Calvinist, just as well as for your own view. The Calvinist could say the same thing... "just because you know something is going to happen doesn't mean you're not dismayed or unhappy about it." Why does this illustration work for you, but not for the Calvinist?
Sounds more like a defense of determinism than a defense of the open veiw. Jesse Morell and Bob Enyart are far more adept with the doctrine, and their arguments more coherent. Don't cheat yourself by stopping here.
This man seems to be very intelligent but he is not a good theologian. for one he says how could God "regret what he knew would happen", well thats ridiculous because knowing something dose not mean you will not be upset by it. He also doesn't understand the bible uses language that man understands.
Question for you, sir.....You imply that when the Bible says that God regrets, it's simply language "that man understands". Would God inspire an untrue writing of scripture in many, many instances because man can not understand that God is, in actuality, not regretting anything at any time? Aren't you asserting that you in fact do understand that God doesn't regret despite the fact that the text says that He does regret? If that's the case, then you're exceedingly great understanding of God goes even beyond what is written does it not?
@@contemplate-Matt.G And they heard the voice of the LORD God walking in the garden in the cool of the day: and Adam and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the LORD God amongst the trees of the garden. And the LORD God called unto Adam, and said unto him, "Where art thou?" Question: *Did God not know where Adam was hiding?* And Adam said, I heard thy voice in the garden, and I was afraid, because I was naked; and I hid myself. And the LORD said, "Who told thee that thou wast naked? Hast thou eaten of the tree, whereof I commanded thee not to eat?" Question: *Did God not know if they had eaten of the forbidden tree?* Are we to infer from this that God did not know the present? It seems to me that God often relates to his creatures on our terms, according to what we'll understand. Your thoughts?
@@AnHebrewChild I agree that God comes to us on our level, Jesus being the greatest example of that. If God does a kind of "pretend" not to know even the present and past, this in no way proves He's also pretending not to know the future. But for me, it's not a question of whether God knows the future because in my view, the future never exists to be known. I believe God can say He'll do something, and if He doesn't change His mind, He'll make it happen despite man's free will. He Knows in advance what He desires to make happen. What He leaves alone, this He doesn't foreknow nor does He have to. I believe this is how the Bible reads.
Mike, I'm wondering if you listened to this entire talk. Will you at least admit one thing; that the only way to explain away all the passages presented here is to argue for the passages depicting God's character to be mere anthropomorphisms? Or do you use the argument that what we read is simply the "perspective" of man while in fact God's "perspective" is something wholly different?
I agree mike. I never thought I'd be here but I just had a calvinist call me one..so I figured I better learn more then just a Google article, on why I'm not
Ephesians 1:11, "we have obtained an inheritance, having been predestined according to His purpose who works all things after the counsel of His will." Hmm, God works all things that have ever happened, are happening, and will happen according to His will? That doesn't sound like open theism. Isaiah 41:22, "Let them bring forth and declare to us what is going to take place; as for the former events, declare what they were, that we may consider them and know their outcome. Or announce to us what is coming." Hmm, so God challenges idols to tell Him exactly what will happen in the future and what the outcome of every event in the past was? That must mean God knows everything that is going to happen in the future and planned for everything that happened in the past to occur. Not only that, He knew exactly what the outcome was for every event in the past. That doesn't sound like open theism. Acts 2:23, "this Man, delivered over by the predetermined plan and foreknowledge of God, you nailed to a cross by the hands of godless men and put Him to death." Hmm, so God not only knew about, but PLANNED the crucifixion of Jesus? That doesn't sound like open theism. God is not just the world's best slot machine that can turn whatever we give Him into the best thing possible. He is a sovereign God who planned how everything would happen before the foundation of the earth based solely on His will.
reknew.org/2008/01/ephesians-111/ reknew.org/2008/01/what-about-acts-223-and-428/ These are Boyd's responses to Ephesians 1:11 and Act 2:23 respectively. As for the passage in Isaiah I think it is very easy to understand this under the lense of open theism. "as for the former events, declare what they were, that we may consider them and know their outcome" God can easily know these pasts events with absolute certainty and why they occurred since they have already occurred and he is omniscient. "Or announce to us what is coming." God also knows future certainties as certain and possibilities as possibilities. This view of open theism is not a wide open free for all so there are events that are set in stone such as God ruling in the end. Notice when asking about future events it does not include "declare what they *ARE*, that we may consider them and know their outcome" I think this is actually some decent evidence to support that perhaps some future events have different possible outcomes and aren't complete certainties. Anyway, hope that will help clarify this interpretation of scripture for you.
"works all things according to his will" do you believe God does everything in the Universe? If someone rapes someone, it's not just that God allows it or plans it... but you think he WORKS it? wow, you've made God not only the author of sin, but the only real sinner that ever lived. Fortunately the real God isn't according to your illogical gnostic nonsense view of scripture. If we know God is Holy and God can't sin, if we know God is righteous and he judges man's actions, then we know He's not "working" you to sin, and he's not the worker of that sin. So how do we read it so it's not contrary to the rest of the BIble? simple: All things are here, in this hypothetical basket of "all things", they're already there, he made the universe and us, we sinned and did things with those things that were evil so now there are broken, messed up terrible things in the basket of "all things". He didn't make the terrible, he made the things that we twisted with sin into terrible things... he then takes "all things" in that basket, and he WORKS them, together for good. It's like kneading dough. If I take dough someone else put yeast in and flour... but I can then take that dough and "work it together" for the good of making it into bread. God makes the wheat and yeast and water... we do things with the things God gave us... then God takes those things and makes something wonderful with it. That's working all things for good. It doesn't mean you are the only agent... it doesn't mean God rapes women and children, molests little boys, sets people on fire, all for his Glory... that's not what it means. Heck, lets ignore the really evil stuff... he works bubble gum wrappers? Romance Novels? Pornography? No... he doesn't DO those things, he takes those things we DO and he WORKS them out... he takes our lemons and makes lemonade. How is this not one of the core themes of all of scripture? It's incredibly obvious: God the redeemer, what does it mean to redeem the lost but to take the sin and ruination of others and make something beautiful out of it... "beauty for ashes".
This is the most incomprehensible argument I've ever listened to and predominantly because it appears to be divorced entirely from the entire counsel of God. Very poor hermeneutics appear to be used in interpreting scripture in his supposed biblical justification of OT. That he finds himself as more clever than orthodox theologians is surely telling of his spiritual fruit.
This is totally contradictory. 1 moment he says God is infinitely wise and knows all possible things. But then he makes God to make bad choices, which denies his character of knowing all things. Or Open theism is trash and God determines all things for his purpose and his glory. So that his wishes are fulfilled and becuase he is he creator we are the creature. Case in point God wanted to find someone to change his mind but could not so he had to wipe out or judge them
I don't know that I would go so far as Greg goes in saying that God knows all possibilities about the future. I'm not saying He doesn't know all possibilities, but the scriptures don't give us explicit statements either way. There do seem to be hints that real novelty exists even for God. For example there are numerous verses in scripture that talk about people singing new songs to God. If God knows all future possibilities as if they were certainties then there wouldn't really be such a thing as new song because every possible song that could ever be written by anyone would have already existed in God's mind as a possibility. In such a reality it would actually be the case that in a sense God's knowledge wouldn't develop it would just change from a set of possibilities to fewer and fewer future possibilities, more and more certainties, and most of all, lots of things that could have been that weren't. I'm not saying that isn't how it is, but that does seem a little strange to me. I'm inclined to think that God is omnicompetent in that He knows everything as it actually is and is wise enough to deal with whatever happens even if people do things that were unlikely to occur. I don't recall Greg characterizing any of God's prior choices as being bad ones. He does say that God regretted the choices He made, but that is what the scriptures plainly say. That doesn't mean that God made a bad choice. That means that people made bad choices so much so that God regretted giving them the power to go so wrong because of how they misused the authority He gave them. It turned out badly, but that doesn't mean that God's choices were bad for giving people that kind of freedom.
@@michaelthechristian8286 , I get the feeling that a lot of open theists feel like they need to say that God knows the full extent of all the particular future possibilities because saying otherwise sounds a little bit like saying that there are things that God doesn't know. I get that the argument that God is infinite and you can't fraction up infinity is pretty compelling, and I don't necessarily disagree with it in principle. However, that is going beyond what the scriptures actually say, so I'm reluctant to make statements like that. I suppose it is theoretically possible that God knows everything particular outcome that is possible, but the idea that God must know what all those possibilities are in advance doesn't seem to be logically entailed by the fact that He knows all things. It might be that future possibilities are real but that they don't exist in any real sense other than as a set of potentialities based in the authority God has delegated to others and the scope of the power they may attain rather than a fixed set of knowable possibilities. In that case real novelty could exist for God. We wouldn't have to think that God must have contemplated all the very worst extremes of evil that could potentially exist. And, we would have no reason to make appeals about the scope of God's knowledge that aren't based on scripture. The longer I have been an open theist the less some of the concerns about God's knowledge even seem relevant. God is powerful enough to judge everyone when the time comes. He has delegated much authority to us, but not forever. He call accomplish the purposes He is pleased to accomplish because He is so wise and because of the apparent scope of what He is determined to accomplish. People often think that it is His purpose to determine and control everything on the basis of verses like Isaiah 46:10 and Ephesians 1:13. I can see how easy it is to infer that from the text, but it isn't stated there or anywhere else in scripture that I know of. We have to look elsewhere to see what God's purposes are. It seems to me that His purposes at least insofar as they are revealed to us in scripture are very limited compared to that. He definitely wants us to love Him and each other and He wants to live with us on the new earth, but besides that I'm not sure that we are told many other specifics about the things He is determined to accomplish. If His purposes are limited primarily to those goals then He wouldn't need to know much about the future at all to accomplish what He wants. Since He is wise He will know the best way to deal with each of us, and since He is powerful He won't have any trouble at the judgement.
Marcos Pou that's an interesting comment. This is from the contemporary English translation of the second verse you cited "I saw everything God does, and I realized no one can really understand what happens. We may be very wise, but no matter how much we try or how much we claim to know, we cannot understand it all. Ecclesiastes 8:17" I've never encountered an open theist who claimed to understand all that God does or all the things that happen in the earth. Greg Boyd in particular has often made the case that all people are massively ignorant, not to be insulting but just to point out how each of us only knows the tiniest fraction of what is real. He usually makes this pint as part of a larger argument to support his interpretation of God's response to Job out of the whirlwind near the end of the book of Job. Both Job and his friends assume that God was the one afflicting Job, and lots of people understand the point of the book to be found in Job's first comment "The Lord gave, and the Lord has taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord ." Job 1:21. I'm inclined to agree with Greg that the point of the book isn't found there, but rather that it's found in God's response to Job that He prefaced by saying "Who is this that darkens counsel by words without knowledge?" Job 38:2. Then God spends 4 chapters outlining lots of details about the physical creation and ancient near eastern mythological beasts (Rahab, Behemoth, and Leviathan) that we know almost nothing about. I think the point God was making is that Job assumed he correctly understood the source of his affliction and while God didn't directly tell Job where his afflictions were coming from He did point out that Job was massively ignorant and I think at least by implication that his conclusions were wrong, if not then why the refutation? In any case I say all this to say that I don't pretend to know everything and they pint of open theism isn't to suggest that any human knows everything about the world or even about how God deals with the world. The claims of open theism are much more modest than that. As I see it, the central claim of open theism isn't really a point about God at all. It's rather a claim that the bible presents a view of reality that many aspects of the future remain unsettled and that God knows all reality as it is. If the future is partly undetermined then God would know it as such. That is to say, we don't believe that God is wrong about the future. He doesn't know the future is settled of it isn't because that would be a false belief and we wouldn't want to ascribe false beliefs to God.
A lack of faith in what? Classical Theism that came about long after the time of Christ? Let's face it...the Bible itself doesn't present a systematic theology of cosmology. The Apostles never taught an exact doctrine of how God's sovereignty functions. We have to piece such ideas together based on other things the Bible says and how it utilizes language.
Not really a strong objection. God planned on them sinning because their sinning was so highly probable it was inevitable AND the world to be made from redeemed humanity was greater than a world in which humans never sinned because the forgiven much love much.
@@Hambone3773inevitable? As in, "infallibly come to pass"? If you don't like the infallible terminology (which simply means without fail) we can use the philosophical term "necessarily" That kind of inevitability? How inevitable are we talking here? Genuinely curious. I'm not looking to argue, but rather to understand the thought process undergirding this.
@@AnHebrewChild inevitable in the sense that the probability was so overwhelmingly high that it would be foolish not to expect it and wise to make plans around it. It's why the plan of salvation was bassd on murder.
I am am open Theist but I hate the "regret" argument. I think "repent" is a better translation for one and for two it describes an acknowledgment to the angels who opposed the creation of mankind as God's image bearing agent that they were correct that free willed man made of dust is unworthy of being God's image bearer. God always knew the fall was an inevitability and planned for it. Just like he knew they would kill his son and planned on using it as the means of atonement. If there is one thing God can count on it is humans sinning.
But the ultimate creation was never perfect angels but redeemed fallen humans in the nation of Isreal and the church made perfect through redemption and that was God's cosmic display of manifold wisdom to the objecting angels.
+Chad Daniels. Should we automatically assume that what it means for God to be sovereign is that He wants to control everything? It seems to me that if God is truly free that sovereignty would mean that He would have the power to do whatever He wants to do even if that means that He wants to give up unilateral control of part of what comes to pass by creating beings with a measure of self determining freedom who can decide some things for themselves.
+Chad Daniels That's a great question. Most people would probably say of course. It is after all at the very center of the focus of the bible's message. I think that Ephesians 1 makes it very clear that God intended to adopt people as sons "in Christ", but so far as I can tell the bible is silent about how else that might have happened if sin hadn't entered the world. As I consider the scriptures it seems clear that God is clearly portrayed as being omniscient, but for various reasons that Greg expounds on in some detail in this video it also seems clear that the future is to some degree unsettled and therefore known by God as such. That is to say the future consists partly of facts that have already been resolved by one mechanism or another. Future facts may be settled by God's will, for example He has determined that Jesus will judge people for what they have done whether good or bad. Some facts may be settled because of the regularity of the universe. Still others may be settled as the result of the solidified character of free agents. However some facts about the future remain unsettled which I think are mostly issues related to choices that humans, angels, demons, perhaps even animals to a small degree may decide. It seems to me that before Adam and Eve sinned that it yet remained possible that they would not sin. In that case Jesus would not have needed to come to redeem mankind in the flesh or otherwise. So, in short my answer is that of course God knew that it was possible that they would sin and in that case that Jesus would come in the flesh to redeem us, but I don't see any scriptural basis for concluding that it was certain that Adam and Eve would sin and that Jesus would definitely have to redeem us. If God knows reality perfectly and it was at one time uncertain whether they would sin or not, then at that time God would have known it was possible that they would sin or that they wouldn't sin.
+Chad Daniels I guess I phrased that in an unfortunate way. I mean that I believe that God does know reality perfectly and that as such He knows certainties as certainties and possibilities as possibilities, but He most certainly cannot know something is certain if in fact it is yet uncertain (though possible) because then we would be saying that God knows something is true that is actually false or perhaps that God knows something is false that is actually true.
Open Theism is heretical view that God does not know all things.If this guy thinks God knows all things he is not an open theist. Open theism is the belief that God dose not know the future
That is a common charge that people make about open theism, but it's actually a mischaracterization of what most open theists believe. Most open theists believe that God does know the future. The difference between what an open theist and other Christians believe about the future is that future possibilities really are real. If what is true about the future is that more than one possible outcome is possible then it God would know that. That is to say that God would know every possible possible future. Other Christians often assume that there is one single future that will definitely come to pass and that the certainty of that future is either determined by the decree of God in the eternal past which fixed all events (as in Calvinism) or they think that God's knowledge in the eternal past is somehow dependent on the free will choices of humans in time (as in Arminianism). Some people hold to the idea of Molinism which is kind of a mixture of those and would take more time to explain than I have right now. However the point is that the debate between open theists and other more traditional perspectives is about the nature and content of the future and sometimes about the kind of world that God decided to create. Since God is omniscient he would know the future perfectly. If the future is an exhaustively presettled reality, by whatever means, then God would know all of the future as settled. If the future contains real possibilities then God would know what all the possibilities are and the probability of each precisely because He is omniscient.
After listening to this lecture about five times, I believe I've found a chink in the armor. It has to do with the chess player analogy and how God thinks and acts. In analyzing it (the chess player analogy), I think it falls short because it presents God in too much of a machine-like fashion where-in his actions become that of an assembly-line, which is like Calvinism and is what Boyd is trying to avoid. This analogy does not take into account the 'human' factor. To go a little random, this point is well illustrated in the movie 'Sully.' In the movie, Sully is faulted for not having the 'immediate' correct reaction in the dual-engine loss situation. Because he had to consider for 30 seconds or more what he needed to do, this resulted in the airplane landing in the water versus landing back on the runway. And since the Scripture tells us God too has 'reactions' and things happen that he wasn't expecting, we would have to say the same would be true for God as was for Sully. That 'reaction' time means the outcome may turn out differently than it could have. Real-life is not like a chess game, in that in a chess game there can be a lack of emotion. In real-life, there are real reactions by both people and God. So, taking this into account, I think the chess player analogy falls short. For God to always be anticipating the alternatives would mean he couldn't leave time for emotional 'reactions' because the very reaction can change the outcome. To ease people's minds, I will say I do find the overall argument of Open Theism as very strong and hold it as my personal position, but I think the chess thing needs addressed. I would love to hear Boyd respond to this.
At the end you say God wants all to be saved and stuff. If the open view is right He could just give everyone a similar experience as He did give to apostle Paul and problem solved. This view doesnt make much sense
Some people do have that experience and are saved by it. Everyone is different and God knows each one of us and what is going to work with us. Paul already believed in God but didn't think he was doing wrong as he didn't recognise Christ's identity. When Stephen was stoned to death, Paul was there (Acts 7). Stephen had said he saw the Son of Man at the right hand side of God, which they saw as blasphemy. So Paul got a witness before his encounter with Jesus. God worked on him gradually then he got struck down and faced Jesus. Not all of us would react the same way. Some people might run if they're scared of Jesus doing that. But he knew the timing with Paul and how to reach him.
The experience given to a divinely appointed messenger who thenselves gas unique motives and goals, vs everyone else (their audience) is going to be different.
I'm very cautious to call something "heresy" because who am I and under what authority am I able to make those claims, but in this case I am as close as it comes to calling it heresy as I can be. Open theism cherry picks verses. It doesn't attempt to understand the passage in any deep and meaningful way, especially in context to the other verses, it makes the promises of God hopes and dreams and limits God to a superior power. Instead of all things being held together by the power of his word, God must "take risks" and wait to see the outcome of even His own decisions.
@@blusheep2 The promises of God aren't hopes and dreams when God is briliant and wise, He is so wise that He actually can achieve what He wants in a world with creatures with libertarian free will and future being partly open. I think God in partly open future is way more powerful and smart than God in future settled from eternitiy.
@@dimitartodorov4826 To each his own but it makes God out to be guessing. IF by saying that he is so wise that he can predict everything that can ever happen accurately and therefore he can inject himself into history when he needs to prod it in one direction or another then you are really only saying that God is actually omniscient and God doesn't take any risks. That isn't what open theism teaches. Open theism teaches that he doesn't know what we are going to do. He only thinks he knows and therefore "risk." And if He takes a risk with me, on my level, and all of history is one risk after the other then God can't predict anything or if He can then his predictions are just that... predictions. Like an investor predicts the outcome of a companies stocks. Most of the time he will be right but sometimes he gets it wrong. That is limiting God or making him more powerful and smarter. My biggest problem with Open theism is that they all sound like atheists. I've been talking with atheists for about 5 years now and open theists and atheists use the same reasoning and arguments. Open theists sound like people that are on the edge of giving up their faith but have found a way to rationalize all the difficult pieces in the Bible like hell, penal substitution, genocide in the OT, etc. For the open theist, hell doesn't exist, everyone goes to heaven with various rewards, penal substitution is not a thing, and the conquering of Canaan wasn't commanded by God but only perceived by the Hebrews to have been commanded so.
@@blusheep2 Its not limiting God since He had a plan what to do as every possiblity was certain. Like how the chess master is limited if He is ready for every possible move you can make. Not knowing with certainty which move are you gonna chose doesnt change a thing since He is prepared for whatever you play. I dont know if "they sound like an atheists" its a sound argument. Open theists have different views on hell, I mean there many non-open theists with different view on hell. Christ Date for example is a famous calvinist who support annihilationism aka conditional immorality. I no, for the open theist everyone doesnt go to heaven. What are you describing is universalism and very few people hold this position today, in fact I dont know even one Open Theist holding universalism. Different people have different views of OT genocides. Greg Boyd is the only open theist I know saying that the genocides are not commands from God.
@@dimitartodorov4826 I admit that my exposure to Open Theism is primarily Greg Boyd. I've been to his church by the way, a few years back before I even knew that Open Theism was a thing. My wife had been watching the podcasts of his service for a few months and really wanted to attend. Although his sermon was fine other things about the church raised some red flags. Primarily their tiny library of books for sale. They were books promoting stuff like the Documentary Hypothesis and written by his number 2 pastor, though the name slips my mind. That was a real shock to me. I then have an acquaintance that I see one a year who was heavily influenced by Greg Boyd. That is where I heard the "universalism" side of Open Theism but if that isn't generally accepted nowadays in Open Theist circles then I think that is good. Of course, I'm forced to wonder why it ever was. Her view was, sort of, the opposite of Chris Date. Everyone gets eternal life but only some enter the New Jerusalem. The third exposure to OT was from Pastor Mike Winger who did a teaching on it. He did primarily focus on Greg Boyd. So, maybe this is why I have seen Greg Boyd as the poster child for OpenT. How is an infinite number of plans a plan at all. Isn't that just reaction? When Ezekiel prophesied the rise of Babylon then Persia, then the Greeks, then the Romans and did so with incredible detail, that speaks to a God that knows what will happen. Not a God that guesses what will happen and had a plan for each contingency. Think about it a bit. If God constantly adjusts his plans to fit the unknown choices of humans then how does he predict such detail 100s of years in the future? That would mean that either 1)God is going to inject himself against man's free will constantly, in order to steer the future, which is very Calvanistic, or 2)God can predict the future decisions of humans so perfectly that there is no difference from omniscience. There is no risk. I think the real problem here is that we are trying to describe God's actions on a timeline. God though is timeless. He is eternal. We live on a single dimension of time and it flows for us in only one direction. It might be that God exists in an infinite number of timelines so that on our timeline God takes risks but because he exists on an infinite number of intersecting timelines to our then He also knows the past and the future as if they are all "now." In philosophy there is a discussion about the nature of time. Its often referred to as A theory or B theory of time. I've always been partial to the A theory of time which what we experience. One minute leads to the next and it only flows in one direction. But then I began to read some quanutm mechanics. Specifically the Quantum observer effect and Quantum decoherence. I'm no expert and the topic is relatively new to me but in order to test the quantum observer effect they did an experiment on Quantum decoherence. So, just in case you are unfamiliar... the quantum observer effect essentially says that a particle exists as a wave of possibilities until it is measured by a conscious observer which causes it to collapse into one of its probabilities. The decoherence experiment put this to the test and found it to be true but they found something else that was really interesting. Something they observed late in time had an effect on what the particle did in the past. A present observation effected what the particle did in the past. Very interesting but it sounds a lot more like the B theory of time or what is sometimes called the "block universe." I'm not convinced but this demonstrates how wacky reality really is and trying to fit God into our limited perceptions is probably not going to describe truth. So, when I see God predicting highly detailed future events, I can't conclude that God takes risks. At least not in the sense that we take risks. There has to be much more to it that we just don't see. Maybe there is a way for God to be a risk taker and omniscient at the same time. Who knows but He is omniscient.
To be honest his argument from God regretting backfires against if he is consistent. Since per his claim God knows every possibility as a certainty then God cannot genuinely regret even his view. After all why would God regret over a possibility that became actualized when he not only knew it could happen, but knew it as a certainty, meaning knew that it would certainly happen? So he is speaking out of both sides of his mouth.
I think you must have misunderstood what Greg was saying. I've watched this video multiple times and heard him speak about this topic in many other instances. I can appreciate how you could think that he was saying this because he does talk kind of fast sometimes and it could have sounded like what you thought. He's not saying that God knows the future as certain because that would be logically impossible if the future isn't certain/definite. What he was saying is that because God is omniscient that He can be as prepared to deal with anything that actually does happen as effectively as if it was certain that it would happen.
Paul Mussell I went back and reheard what he said and I think you didn't understand my reply. He did say that God knows each possibility as if it was a certainty. Therefore, when mankind became so corrupt that God had no choice but to destroy them by flood, God knew this possible outcome of the human condition as a certainty. If this were so then it makes no sense even on your view for God to regret and or feel sorry that he made man unless he didn't even foresee this as a possibility.
The interpretation is that God could predict and plan for it as if it were a certainty, but that doesn't mean God doesn't expect or anticipate an alternative or better decision. Boyd's interpretation of providence is that God works with possibilities and probabilities rather than a rigidly linear string of events, so it can make sense for something to upset or anger God especially if said event was not a probable outcome. I think it makes even less sense for God to regret or be sorry that he made man under the deterministic interpretation of scripture. How can God genuinely regret or be sorry about something he manipulated to happen? I'd like to know what your take is on this, because I have yet to get a really satisfactory (at least IMO) answer from a calvinist on this topic. Anyway, hope this was helpful in clarifying the position.
I understand your point and I see how you would draw this conclusion, but I don't think regret comes from a place of uncertainty. For example, if you bought a pit bull (I love pit bulls, just an analogy) and you knew it was possible that he would turn on someone but just as possible (and maybe even probable) that he would not, couldn't you still feel regret for getting him if he did the worst possible action and killed someone? My point is that regret is not a response to something we didn't know was possible, but rather a response to a horrible outcome that we would have rather avoided.
***** You're actually comparing how God, an eternal being, reacts in time with the way "His creation" reacts in time? You can't see the difference? Tell me, Mike, what is it like to be the same today, yesterday and forever? You don't know, right? Because you're constantly changing and evolving, right? We're made in God's image. Translation: God's not like us, we're like God.
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This is a very strong presentation. Open Theism is another one of those paradigms that enable us to take many plain statements in the Scriptures on their face value.
and completely disregard other plain statements as false
@@hondotheology such as?
This put Calvinism to bed for me, gives me reason to pray and hope! There is hope that God's plan may just possibly be moved by his children's speaking to him in the way that my children speaking to me, moved me. Are we not created in his image?
I love this response. Prayer really does matter and it really can influence what comes to pass.
@@dannymcmullan9375 well thought out response. I would consider myself to be a partial open theist as there are too many scripture that point to acts of free will.
@@dannymcmullan9375 I won't deny that open theism makes me feel better, but that's no reason to believe it. It's true that the scriptures don't speak in the clear explicit terms that we might prefer, so we're left to "do theology" if we are going to boil down what we believe in ways that regular people can understand.
I think that you're constructing an either or model here that doesn't really reflect what we find in the scriptures. We do find that God is determined to accomplish His purposes, but we aren't given an exhaustive list of what those purposes are or an explicit explanation of what is included in the scope of His purposes. We also find that we are told to pray and that the prayers of a righteous man avails much. There are lots of if then statements in scripture connected to prayer. Much of that makes little sense if everything about the future is settled.
@@loobell3236 I'd say that nearly all open theists are "partial". I'm not sure I've ever encountered anyone who believes that all facts about the future remain unsettled. People may disagree over the degree to which the future remains unsettled, but the main debate is whether there are any future contingents or possibilities. Open theists say yes there are at least some, while pretty much all other Christian groups say no, that future possibilities do not really exist. Such people often still talk about the future in terms of if and maybe during ordinary conversation, but when it comes to theology they have to turn off the common sense part of their brain and ignore or dismiss large swathes of scripture.
@@dannymcmullan9375 because the prayer of a righteous man may move God to do things without which, he may not have done. i.e. act to influence your friend's choice towards a positive response. Without which [your prayer], God may chose not to exercise mercy and gives up your friend to his/her own ways.
You assume God has already done everything possible for your friend. But in God's sovereign and autonomous will, he chooses whom he will have mercy and grace. It is wrongheaded to think that if God does not extend mercy or grace, he is less good. God has done enough for your friend and does not owe anything to anyone to do more. It is an erroneous understanding of love to think that God must have already done everything possible.
This is so good.
A far more grand view than the limited view of God of Calvinists.
Wow this is mind blowing... what most helps me settle this is the element that God is infinitely intelligent and can there fore anticipate each possibility
Any and all cracks in the cement prison of many ancient doctrines is really appreciated... Light is coming in... And by the way, ideas can be prisons as much as any disease or worse. I didn't listen to this entire video, because I've got responsibilities, but it was refreshing....
...the Triniy? ...
Hello Greg Boyd, Eugene here. Think about Plato's immutability this way: Perfection means that a thing is what it is supposed to be.
A static and un-moving thing is perfect only if it remains static and un-moving, while a moving thing is perfect only if it remains moving.
God is a moving "THING" PERSON and would become imperfect only if the moving, i.e., living, stopped.
“And my speech and my preaching were not with persuasive words of human wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power, that your faith should not be in the wisdom of men but in the power of God.”
1 Corinthians 2:4-5 - NKJV
God knows the future infinitely more than he knows it precisely
What does this mean? Can you elaborate?
I see that things genuinely hang on me because the sovereign God uses me as one of His means to get stuff done, stuff which He had preordained to get done.
Interesting to ssy the least. Ive got to think this through.
Thinking this way can really change everything. Don't take my word for it. Check it out for yourself and see what the Bible says.
I would like to offer one insight that helped me though. In every Biblical controversy I have studied I found that the main Biblical reason that the controversy continues to exist is that there are apparent tensions in the scripture on the subject. In this case there are various statements throughout scripture that affirm the awesome extent of God's power, authority, knowledge, wisdom, foreknowlege etc, as well as seemingly sweeping statements about what God can and will accomplish. And, there are also lots of passages that seem to assume that people have lots of autonomy, that God talks about the future in conditional terms, that God changes His mind, that lots of things happen that God was opposed to and apparently did not want to occur, and various other reasons to think that the future is unsettled in many respects and that God has given people the power to affect what will happen.
In this particular controversy I think the main thing to consider that helps make sense of this tension is to notice how wide scope of the verses that talk about God's power and determinations is. Consider Isaiah 46:10 and Ephesians 1:14. They say "I make known the end from the beginning, from ancient times, what is still to come. I say, ‘My purpose will stand, and I will do all that I please'" and "In him we were also chosen, having been predestined according to the plan of him who works out everything in conformity with the purpose of his will". There are two very important clauses in these verses that often get ignored. They are "all that I please" and "the purpose of his will". People often just assume that since God had the power to do whatever He wanted to do and that He could have created a world in which everything was predetermined that He did do that and/or that now that things are going along as they are if He wants things to go this or that way that somehow He dynamically and inevitably determined how everything would go. There is a lot of double speak in this area especially by Molinists and to a slightly lesser extent by people who believe in simple foreknowledge. And there is a lot of dogmatism by people on the determinist end of the spectrum. I will just say that we need not infer that it was the purpose of God's will to control everything, and that we should remember that there are things that are impossible for God. For example we are told it is impossible for Him to lie in Hebrews 6:18 and that He cannot be tempted by evil in James 1:13. These are not negative qualities and apparently not something God has the option of choosing for Himself. One logical implication of the idea that God cannot lie is that He cannot make a commitment and fail to keep it and He cannot really give something and then take it away in a way that conflicts with the terms of His original gift (Romans 11:29). So, if God gave people authority over the earth (Genesis 1:26-30, Hebrews 2:6-9) for some period of time He apparently can't revoke the power He delegated unilaterally without in effect lying. Much of His frustration and other features of the Bible can be explained by this.
In every controversy that I have been able to reach a confident conclusion about how to resolve the controversy I found that one perspective would have adequate answers for all the claims made by opposing views that make at least good enough sense within their own view. I have not found that to be the case for the competing views. One really good way to get a feel for when a view may have a real weakness is to closely examine how they respond to the passages that people with opposing views offer as their own evidence. While what people say about their own view is certainly important, it's usually easy to see why they would think what they think based on the reasons they offer. Seeing if the responses they give to opposing views are reasonable is not always easy. In some controversies you may find that people will almost completely ignore the arguments of a particular opposing view, that they will dismiss them, or that they will just declare that they are heretics. Notice that those objections are not arguments that show how the verses the supposed heretics cite actually make sense in the view of the view of the person calling heresy. Cries of heresy are often the only response people with weak arguments can give, so they say it loud. Sometimes it's the very thing that people scream heresy about the loudest that fits the scriptures best.
In general I have found that there will be one group who adequately answers every scriptural objection to their view in a way that makes sense and usually the other groups tend to ignore the positive arguments made by that same group the most. When you find that combination there is a good chance you have found the right answer to the question. I think their arguments mostly get ignored or that people will just go back to their own go to proof texts because there aren't any good arguments against their main positive proofs.
You might find some of the videos I made on this subject and others to be worth your while. Some of them are here on my personal channel, but they are all on my other channel. www.youtube.com/@understandingperspectives9361/playlists
Jeremiah 32:35 (KJV) And they built the high places of Baal, which are in the valley of the son of Hinnom, to cause their sons and their daughters to pass through the fire unto Molech; which I commanded them not, neither came it into my mind, that they should do this abomination, to cause Judah to sin.
😎 That verse means that the act or idea of sacrificing one's son to Baal did not come into God's mind, it came from the Israelites'. It doesn't mean that God did not know that the Israelites would do such human sacrifice.
@@calebjushua9252 open theism doesn’t say that God didn’t know, It just forces determinists to face the fact that the god of the Bible has a character of love and would never be the author of such an atrocity as determinism states that he is.
@@atyt11
I don't know what's your point. But, what I am trying to say is that instructing those Israelites to sacrifice their babies to Baal did not come to God's mind.
@@calebjushua9252 My point was I agree with you. God was not the author of the evil... Because He knows everything that is knowable. Molech was one of the Free choices available to humans sin-abled nature.
Non -Open-theists strawman that open-theists think "God does not know"
that is because they don't have a real rebuttle to what is so obvious in the Bible.
God Knows ALL that is possible to know.
God finds that real relationship with real image bearers is worth it.
Playing barbies with creatures has ZERO value to God.
This is the best defense of free will I've ever heard. It goes straight for the throat of my determinism.
You actually agree that God didn't know you were going to be born?
He never said that.
***** Didn't have to. That's the open theists position
Open Theists believe that God knows every future possibility as well as we could know a certainty, and that He has a plan for any and every outcome of every future free decision. It's not like He is caught off guard, or not prepared.
* The Lord frequently changes his mind in the light of changing circumstances, or as a result of prayer (Exod. 32:14; Num. 14:12-20; Deut. 9:13-14, 18-20, 25; 1 Sam. 2:27-36; 2 Kings 20:1-7; 1 Chron. 21:15; Jer. 26:19; Ezek. 20:5-22; Amos 7:1-6; Jonah 1:2; 3:2, 4-10). At other times he explicitly states that he will change his mind if circumstances change (Jer. 18:7-11; 26:2-3; Ezek. 33:13-15). This willingness to change is portrayed as one of God’s attributes of greatness (Joel 2:13-14; Jonah 4:2). If the future were exhaustively and eternally settled, as classical theism teaches, it would be impossible for God to genuinely change his mind about matters.
* God sometimes expresses regret and disappointment over how things turned out-even occasionally over things that resulted from his own will. (Gen. 6:5-6; 1 Sam. 15:10, 35; Ezek. 22:29-31). If the future was exhaustively and eternally settled, it would be impossible for God to genuinely regret how some of his own decisions turned out.
* At other times God tells us that he is surprised at how things turned out because he expected a different outcome (Isa. 5:3-7; Jer. 3:67; 19-20). If the future was eternally and exhaustively settled, everything would come to pass exactly as God eternally knew or determined it to be.
* The Lord frequently tests his people to find out whether they’ll remain faithful to him (Gen. 22:12; Exod. 16:4; Deut. 8:2; 13:1-3; Judges 2:20-3:5; 2 Chron. 32:31). If the future were eternally and exhaustively settled, God could not genuinely say he tests people “to know” whether they’ll be faithful or not.
* The Lord sometimes asks non-rhetorical questions about the future (Num. 14:11; Hos. 8:5) and speaks to people in terms of what may or may not happen (Exod. 3:18-4:9; 13:17; Jer. 38:17-18, 20-21, 23; Ezek. 12:1-3). If the future was exhaustively and eternally settled, God could never genuine speak about the future in terms of what “may” or “may not” happen.
Michael, great response. I'm becoming more sympathetic to the open view. However, as I'm sure you're well aware, there are many biblical verses which seem to suggest God has predestined men, even in terms of salvation. Both you with your post and Greg Boyd give powerful positive arguments for the open view. However, how do you defend the negative arguments against it based on scripture - the obvious culprits being Romans 9, Ephesians 1:4, 2 Timothy 2:10, Romans 8:29, 1 Peter 1:2, 1 Peter 1:20, etc.
I'm not asking you to defend each and every one of these verses. I'm more interested in a general defense (unless you want to go through each verse ;) ). Or could you point me to a resource that does defend the open view in spite of seemingly contradictory verses such as these?
I love this! It makes so many things fall in place. Thank you!
Hm. This is interesting to me as a computer programmer and to think about how God is the creator of cause and effect Himself.
Much to think on. Appreciated.
Hello Greg Boyd, Eugene here. I was attending NOBTS IN New Orleans in 1972 when I wrote my first paper on this subject. Possibilities was my view then but I left without convincing anyone. I have left the Baptist and have changed my views on a number of doctrines. I was glad to find you several years ago. By the way, the one and only
God that Jesus is serving, is now my one and only
God. I gave up the false god that Jesus never told me about. Like becoming and open theist, it has been somewhat costly. It made no sense that the god the body of Christ worshiped, was a different god, a three person god, while the head, Christ, worshiped a single person
God. That ain't right, so I decided not to ask Jesus to change but to change myself, and I did. Jesus's God, Our Father in heaven is now my only God. Now that seem right. Thanks for all you do for us.
Hi Mr Lanzl, thanks for speaking up. "The Truth shall set you free..." You're not alone, brother. The cost you faced will be returned as a great reward from the One God you worship.
scripture is clear, God was in Christ reconciling the world unto Himself. God was manifest in the flesh and dwelt among us. He shall be called Emanuel ... meaning God with us. The word was in the beginning WITH GOD, and the word WAS GOD. Jesus made it clear that He is distinct from the Father, but is equal with Him. All things were created by Him, through Him, and for Him. Denying that Jesus is God is a damnable heresy and demonstrates you are still blind and lost. You are likely a Jehovah's false Witness or Mormon based on your words. I hope you snapped out of it
@@lukejones5272 Hello Luke Jones, Eugene here. Thanks. Many who "pay the cost" of gaining the truth have no regrets and I am one.
@@bigdogboos1 Hello Big Dog, Eugene here. Think of a hand in a glove. We watch as the gloves remove the bad heart and lungs from a near dead man and then replace them with a healthy heart and lungs. We never see the actual hands, only the gloves. The doctors hands were in the gloves. If you saw the gloves you essentially saw the hands. God was in someone who was not God. That someone was the man, Yeshua Messiah. When that man told the lame man "Your sins are forgiven" he was not the one forgiving, he was telling the lame man what God had told him to say. God told Moses that He would raise up a man like Moses and put HIs words in his mouth. That is what Jesus (Yeshua) told us he was doing. Your guess as to who I am is wrong. I am an "Arrogant Son Of Baptist" or Arrogant SOB if you please. Just as you do not understand me, you do not understand scripture. You are doing what I did for 50 years when it comes to reading the Bible. I first came to believe Baptist theology that I learned from hymns, country songs such as "I'll fly away" and preaching. Then when I read my KJV Bible, I was not trying to learn theology, I was trying to find passages that supported what I already believed. I did not know about the difficulty of translating truth from one language to another and that mistakes were possible, and in fact happened. Even when the translation is correct, the understanding can be misunderstood. That is what happened to the gospel of John and many other passages. The "logos" of John one, is not a person, it is what God thinks and says. Everywhere in scripture we read that God's logos came TO someone. Never does God's logos (word) become someone. God's logos/word came to Jesus and to his disciples and dwelt/tabernacled IN them. Having God's word "dwell among us" would do no one any good, it must dwell in us. That is what the Greek really says. The "In the beginning" of John's gospel is the beginning of the ministry of Jesus. The disciples are said to have been with Jesus from the beginning in John's gospel. Jesus is the second Adam. Genesis is the first beginning and records the first Adam. John is the second beginning and records the second Adam. There are two very different historical periods, the law and grace. Moses and Jesus. Some think of two testament, two dispensations or two plans of God. The first Adam begins the first period and the second Adam begins the second beginning. Regarding the theology that Jesus created the universe of Genesis is based on a mistranslation of the word "dia" as "by" when it should be "for the sake of". Read the passage in Greek and see how much more sense it makes. It was clear to me when I was forced to face the fact that Jesus never told me about a triune god, he never worshiped a triune god and he is not sitting beside a triune god, that If I want to FOLLOW JESUS I must agree to make Jesus' God MY God. I can't have a different God than the one I claim to follow. None of the proof text that you will send me to will be new to me. None of them teach a triune god, period. NONE. You will find in your own bible that God is not a anthropoid nor the son of an anthropoid. Jesus is both an anthropoid and the son of an anthropoid. God cannot die and Jesus said that he was dead. It is impossible for three god persons to be one God Essence and the one God Essence to be the God of Joel. Compare what Joel says and what Peter says about their one God. When you judge me as being wrong you also judge Joel and Peter as being wrong about who the only one God is. If Jesus' God is not your only God you worship a false god. It is that simple, a child can understand that. You do not and you cannot understand your triune god. That theology is an incomprehensible divine mystery too complicated for your little finite mind to grasp. Compare that to Jesus' "Our Father who art in Heaven" and choose who you will serve, the god of Greek myth or the God of Jesus.
@@bigdogboos1 Hey Big Dog. I believe it was Jesus who said "The Father is greater than I" or "The Father is greater than all." So they aren't equal. See 1 Corinthians 15:28, the Son is subject to the Father. Also, how many gods do you have? I have one, King David has one, and Jesus has one. And I have "one mediator between God and man, the Human Messiah Jesus" [1 Timothy 2:5]. Funny though, there are a few creedish statements in the bible regarding necessary faith [1 Tim 2:5, Eph 4:4-8, John 17:3, 1 Cor 8:6, Rom 10:6] and they all have One God [the Father] and one Lord, the man Jesus Christ. But no such statements about Jesus' pre-existence or divinity. Interesting, right? I'll stick to the bible, and I hope you do too. :)
Finally! Someone talking sense.
The story at the end is so powerful.
It's also shockingly similar to my story, but in different stages at different times (missions and a failed marriage, also a church split, all while praying hard from childhood till then for xyz and God's will).
I was devastated... then devastated again, then again.
I never fully got back on the horse and now I try to live a "normal life" but having given so much time to the life less ordinary I'm pretty bad at it. Job is mediocre, earnings are adequate, second marriage and a dog... no kids.
I have no idea how to really fully move forward.
I became an open theist for several reasons, both logical and scriptural but also because it made the most sense of my situation, and it helped me not lose my faith as I felt so betrayed by God.
The trouble is I never got my idealism back. I'm still afraid of failure. I still don't trust like I should. I don't want to go overseas again for missions, at least not as a career, I think I should teach. But every open door seems to close and I feel stuck in limbo forever.
I don't know what to do.
Why am I writing this?
I'm not sure... maybe as a kind of prayer, outloud. A call for help... for renewal, for favor, for change. But I'm still afraid I'm going to screw it all up.
Ravissary79, it sounds like you've had a hard time with various issues and don't know what to do. While I don't know the particulars I can sympathize with your struggle. I've had my own set of problems, and sometimes I feel a little discourages about the direction and progress of my life. I take comfort in knowing that God can use suffering in our lives to produce patience and maturity, that even Jesus was perfected through what he suffered, and that the suffering we endure should be received as discipline from God. (James 1: Hebrews 5:7-9, Hebrews 12). I'm not suggesting that God is causing all our pain and suffering in order to teach us a lesson, but I do think it is the case that all suffering give us an opportunity for growth (at least in our patience). My 9 year old daughter died in her sleep last September. I don't think that God killed her to teach me a lesson, but her death has brought much suffering to us and along with it opportunities to grow in patience and endurance. I was looking for opportunities to partner with God through what followed her death, and at times I thought I was really in the middle of what God had in mind for me to do, but I was lied to and betrayed by a partner in ministry, so now I'm feeling a little aimless since I don't have a clear direction to go in terms of Christian ministry. I don't really know what to do either in a long term sense, but each day I face little opportunities and I try to take advantage of them and remain faithful. I pray that God will give us both clearer direction for the future and that in the mean time He will empower us to live in faithful obedience. May God bless you.
www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=james+1%3A2-5%2C+hebrews+5%3A7-9%2C+hebrews+12&version=NIV
@@paulmussell7943 Amen to that brother. Since I write that post God opened a door for me in a little local church and I teach a simple narrative based inductive type bible study on Tuesday nights, Genesis: 1 chapter a week. I love it. I've tried to be faithful and God has helped me through, but that's it so far... I'm still in a dead end job, I still have no idea about the future, but God is slowly re-teaching me to trust again.
Thank you for your reply. It touched my heart.
@@ravissary79 I'm glad to hear you're learning to truth God again. I understand too well how we can blame God for the bad things that happen to us. Getting to the point where you trust His heart even if you don't have a good answer for why is huge. I find that open theism is a big part of being able to do that. It's possible to trust Him with any belief about the future I suppose, but none of the other systems make any sense to me and they each fail to account for part of the scriptural data. You might be interested in my other channel. I've got some videos about open theism and other views there as well. th-cam.com/channels/pl2wvgPSToBOLg10bCoIsg.html
@@paulmussell7943 thank you so much. Yes, trusting God as a PERSON in Open Theism is frantically different than as a first cause or a fixed principle of being in there "systems". The fact is I've never lost faith in God as the good God who rules as he pleases, but I had trouble reconciling the nature how his divine will shakes out with my own choices and the perception of divine hiddeness... thinking I knew what to do, then rolling nothing but snake eyes and getting nothing when I sought guidance.
I suppose it's like a child learning to not be so dependant on their parent aways kissing their booboos. It's just that I'm so bad at doing so much of life on my own. I learned these lessons SO LATE in life and it's hard to just "let go" and "let God" as the cliche goes, when I know I have to be responsible and I've come to terms with the fact that's it's NOT A given that he has to clean up my messes.
Yes he works it all together for our good, but that's a lot simpler than we think. Love is eternal, if we persevere and suffer and then die but obtain our eternal reward we still win even without some divinely favored poetic justice in our natural lifetime. We aren't promised a get out of jail free card... a miraculous answer to prayer, when it all goes so horribly wrong. People's lives are ruined every single day and who knows how many are born again? The faithful even starve to death in the third world, or are tortured without rescue.
Ecclesiastes is TRUE. The faithful rarely obtain justice in this life. The wicked often go unpunished in the here and now. This doesn't make God unjust... but it does make it hard to hope he'll make an exception for me... which hurts my prayer life.
But I still sometimes try because you never know. I KNOW he hears me. I KNOW he does right by me, and HAS interceded before. But my confidence in any given situation x... I dunno.
I'm still struggling with that.
Like the hard hearted Israelites I want a sign. And maybe I need to just trust in what little I DO know till I know more.
That's faith, not necessarily believing you get what you want... but trusting He's still good even if you don't. It's so hard to see, but on another level, once you see it you can only unsee it in blasphemy. Not one or his words will return void. I know that.
It's disturbing to me how people (like this man) can introduce new doctrines, and do it with such ease and even jokingly not being bothered at the thought of the negative effect it would cause to the church, as if we were planning a new business strategy for a secular company.
In Gethsemane, the Savior was not asking that it might be possible not to die on the cross, but that it might be possible for Him to be spared some of the sufferings, both before and during the crucifixion. It would have been possible for Him to have been spared some of the tortures, or to have had some of the pain limited or alleviated.
Upon what grounds do you assert this? I don't see this in the text. But maybe I've missed something.
@@AnHebrewChild There can be no doubt that the Saviour was totally committed to dying for our sins as necessary for our salvation, being the human incarnation of God, He was fully resolved to do that. What was not absolutely essential for that atonement was all the horrific suffering which He would endure, and it was surely possible to not have to undergo all of that, or for it to be mitigated. Yet the human will conformed fully to the divine will in accepting that cup of suffering in full.
Check out Roger Forster's 'God's Strategy in Human History', a quite brilliant defence of free will and probably the best Christian book I've ever read.
1. Is the choice of a Truely FREE agent knowable before the choice is made.? Does it exist?
2. Can you have a REAL relationship without REAL FREEwill choices?
3. Does God want to be in Real relationship with His image bearers?
4. Does the Father know Jesus's question before he asks it?
A. God knows all our choices before we exist and is just playing barbie dolls with us.
or
B. God is so unimaginably powerful He can get His perfect sovereign will done
while allowing Truly Free creatures to be in a REAL relationship with Him.
Brilliant 👍
To be honest his argument from God regretting backfires against if he is consistent. Since per his claim God knows every possibility as a certainty then God cannot genuinely regret even his view. After all why would God regret over a possibility that became actualized when he not only knew it could happen, but knew it as a certainty, meaning knew that it would certainly happen? So he is speaking out of both sides of his mouth.
shamounian exactly !
I agree with his general stance on Open Theism..
However, your point is a valid one.
God knows all theoretical possible futures this the events must take place then actualized then God acts with the actualized events. God responds to what actually happens.
The argument is that God knows every possibility as deeply AS IF it were a certainty. This meaning he knows all the ins and outs of the decisions his creatures can make. This does not mean he can't genuinely experience regret it if a possible decision or outcome that is particularly bad comes to pass. I've seen people make this argument and it is a very weak criticism.
@@BecketTheHymnist Indeed, even in my very limited wisdom, i can foresee certain failures and still be disappointed when it becomes reality.
People just can't accept the Bible speaks of God as having failed expectations, and being disappointed by them.
To even suggest that God doesn’t know every single thing that will ever happen feels like heresy.
Well... sometimes the heretic is right...
... and they burn him at the stake.
The issue is really sovereignty. Open Theism declares God's knowledge is so complete of all potential that he never sacrifices sovereignty even if he allows for free agency of others.
Why? If it doesn't threaten sovereignty why would it be an issue?
@@Hambone3773 point 1) The bible never actually says God is "sovereign". Not once, only the new bible versions add that in there to give meaning when the original text does not say it.
Point 2) Sovereignty has been bastardized by calvinists. It does not mean controlling all things all the time. It simply means having all authority over a realm. God is completely sovereign over his creation, and is "in control", but he does NOT "control all things/choices".
@@bigdogboos1 The Bible implies God is sovereign. To say God is "in control" is the same thing as saying God is Sovereign. A title such as "King of Kings and Lord of Lords" or saying "God knows the beginning from the end" is a declaration of control for which the English word is "Sovereign". So your first point seems to be semantical only. Your second point I already agree with which is why I lean toward an Open Theism interpretation of scripture. It just makes better sense of the Biblical claims about how God operates.
I want to know what happened to the missionary woman. She got back on track... did she go to Tanzania with her baby?
Good question. I don't know either.
Is the greg boyd from the church in minnesota. I totally forget the church name but i know its based near st Paul. Answer would be appreciated.
Yes, he is one of the pastors at Woodland Hills.
Calvinism is the most wicked thing. Idk how anyone can claim to reject it and think in their mind that a Calvinist can have salvation. It truly boggles my mind as their very prideful doctrines reject everything that biblical salvation is.
The only way one is coming to it exegetically in my opinion is if they 1.) use less than 1% of the bible. 2.) use wrongful unscriptural definitions to their terms.
@@VaughnMalecki Vaughn can you tell me how the doctrines of Calvinism “reject everything that biblical salvation is”?
@@VaughnMaleckiThanks for sharing your thoughts. If I may, here are a few of my own:
RE condemning those who espouse Calvinist beliefs, I'd be careful with this kind of thinking. I would say that it's not entirely right to charge a man for wickedness and declare him 'unsaved' based upon certain logical outgrowths of his belief structure. Most pertinently because he or she may not be cognizant of all the implications of his or her beliefs. None of us are.
I have Calvinist family & friends who just seem to want to affirm that "all redemption is of God, and all damnation is of man. That salvation is of the Lord." In their own limited understanding of God, they see the 'doctrines of grace' as the belief set that best helps uphold this affirmation. Some are the 'frozen chosen,' but others are zealous that God receive all the credit for their salvation, and they none of it. They see traditional Reformed theology as the surest route to get there. Many of these people are kind-hearted to the stranger and warmly evangelistic.
We all have incomplete, even distorted, ideas of the Divine. Blind spots. Some views I hold no doubt have pernicious implications, _down stream._ If I was aware of these blind spots, they wouldn't be blind spots!
I would wager that the same holds true for others reading this, including you.
Id be careful not to conceive of Calvinistic _people_ as the embodiment of Calvinistic _theology,_ especially not as it is sometimes caricatured by its detractors. I'd be careful not to uniformly judge the souls of all who confess Calvinistic beliefs as unsaved. _For with what measure we mete,_ he warned us, _it shall be measured to us again._
> Shalom
@@AnHebrewChild religion is for idiots.
Around 20:00 he seems to be saying God knows what end He wants to achieve and whatever a person might do, He is ready. That sounds like...Calvinism?
Not really. In Calvinism all things are determined.
In Open Theism God can work all things together for the good of those who love him, but he doesn't control all of the things he works together. Evil isn't preplanned but is accounted for.
People really can do A or B and God typically doesn't control to produce A or B, but he understands how to arrive at HIS end using either A or B.
Open Theism recognizes that God has the right to determine SOME things while not determining many other things. It's not an all or nothing scenario.
21:33 bookmark
Youre no longer an open theist if you say all of future is certain for God.
I think you could have made the argument stronger by talking about the idea of justice. Heaven and Hell are consequential. Crime and punishment and reward and privilege are contingent. You sort of included it in your practical consideration in point 5 but you could have dug deeper with justice passages.
What ever YAHWEH as spoke is for our sake, for He creates the day everything there in. when man "creature" tries to put himself above God from the day bound creation, Ever learning and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth, putting the creature before the creator who gives everything, on the inside and outside, from the mind and the space the mind thinks in and the doors opened in the mind and the paths thereby, to the ground we are allowed to walk on, knowing not there being judged in there arrogant, self worship, high mindedness, inwardly and outwardly not giving the Glory nor even thanks to God, for God as no respect of persons for the flesh cannot please him, nor the mind set on the flesh to destruction. God is a Spirit: and they that worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth.
Can you share the context for this talk? Date, Organizer, etc?
I don't really know when this took place. It's been several years ago now. It used to be that this presentation was cut up into a bunch of short clips on youtube so I downloaded them edited them together and reposted it.
A thought I had about God's frustration "looking for" a prayer warrior. Is it possible that the story is putting it in human terms, so the people reading the story would have an inking what it is like for God? God wasn't REALLY looking for anything, because he already knew all about it (i.e. there was never a prayer warrior, and never going to be one, to save Israel in the time of Ezekiel) but he wanted to get it across how FRUSTRATING it was for him to not find what he is looking for or needs. Just a thought. Excellent presentation. I've been wanting to find out more about Open Theism, and this was superb!
I'm glad you enjoyed the video. I think this is one of the best resources I have found on the subject. While all open theists agree that the future is to some degree unsettled, there are different philosophical approaches to making sense out of the data. The most articulate and well laid out comparison of the different approaches to open theism I have come across is in this paper. Some of it is pretty technical and it is kind of dense in that it includes a lot of information in relatively few words, but it's pretty understandable and I think it is a really helpful analysis. I haven't spoken to the author of this paper about doing an interview, but I have met him and I think he would be willing to record an interview once I've had time to go through the material again and put some questions together. I'll post it on my channel if I can get him to agree. trinities.org/dale/threeroads.pdf
One of the many problems with this man and his presentation is that we know for a fact that open theism is wrong.
God knows the future because He has ordained absolutely everything without exception.
In Ephesians 1:11, we see that God “works all things according to the counsel of His will.” This “all things,” according to verse 10 includes all things in the heavens and all things on the earth. And according to Colossians 1:16, this “all things” both in the heavens and on earth includes all things “visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities,” so then it isn't just physical things, but also actions, circumstances, and even the very thoughts and wills of men (Cf. Psalm 105:25, Revelation 17:17), including the evil actions of men (Cf. 2 Samuel 12:11-12).
The word translated into English as “work” is the transitive verb “ἐνεργέω," which, as a transitive verb, it has a direct object (“all things”) and it means “to effect” that direct object. Since all “effects” must have a sufficient cause, this passage quite literally makes God the ultimate cause of all things in heaven and on earth. The same transitive verb construction is seen in Ephesians 1:19, 1 Corinthians 12:6, 11, Galatians 3:5, Philippians 2:13; see Thayer’s, pg. 215.
God’s ordination of whatsoever comes to pass often goes by the term “Sovereignty of God,” but also by some as “Exhaustive Divine Determinism.” Note that the definition of “Determine” is “cause something to occur in a particular way;” something that Paul explains that God does for all things in heaven and on earth (Cf. Romans 11:36). While creatures are indeed responsible agents of causation, the notion of “free will” (self-determination) did not have its genesis in scripture, but in Stoic philosophy, and it entered into Christian thinking through the teachings of Irenaeus, Clement, and finally, Origen (“A Free Will: Origins of the Notion in Ancient Thought,” by Michael Frede).
So, all of those passages in scripture that got him started thinking in a new direction most assuredly do not mean what he thinks that they mean.
In every Biblical controversy I have studied I found that the main Biblical reason that the controversy continues to exist is that there are apparent tensions in the scripture on the subject. In this case there are various statements throughout scripture that affirm the awesome extent of God's power, authority, knowledge, wisdom, foreknowlege etc, as well as seemingly sweeping statements about what God can and will accomplish. And, there are also lots of passages that seem to assume that people have lots of autonomy, that God talks about the future in conditional terms, that God changes His mind, that lots of things happen that God was opposed to and apparently did not want to occur, and various other reasons to think that the future is unsettled in many respects and that God has given people the power to affect what will happen.
In this particular controversy I think the main thing to consider that helps make sense of this tension is to notice how wide scope of the verses that talk about God's power and determinations is. Consider Isaiah 46:10 and Ephesians 1:14. They say "I make known the end from the beginning, from ancient times, what is still to come. I say, ‘My purpose will stand, and I will do all that I please'" and "In him we were also chosen, having been predestined according to the plan of him who works out everything in conformity with the purpose of his will". There are two very important clauses in these verses that often get ignored. They are "all that I please" and "the purpose of his will". People often just assume that since God had the power to do whatever He wanted to do and that He could have created a world in which everything was predetermined that He did do that and/or that now that things are going along as they are if He wants things to go this or that way that somehow He dynamically and inevitably determined how everything would go. There is a lot of double speak in this area especially by Molinists and to a slightly lesser extent by people who believe in simple foreknowledge. And there is a lot of dogmatism by people on the determinist end of the spectrum. I will just say that we need not infer that it was the purpose of God's will to control everything, and that we should remember that there are things that are impossible for God. For example we are told it is impossible for Him to lie in Hebrews 6:18 and that He cannot be tempted by evil in James 1:13. These are not negative qualities and apparently not something God has the option of choosing for Himself. One logical implication of the idea that God cannot lie is that He cannot make a commitment and fail to keep it and He cannot really give something and then take it away in a way that conflicts with the terms of His original gift (Romans 11:29). So, if God gave people authority over the earth (Genesis 1:26-30, Hebrews 2:6-9) for some period of time He apparently can't revoke the power He delegated unilaterally without in effect lying. Much of His frustration and other features of the Bible can be explained by this.
When you talk of Abraham being prevented from sacrificing Issac, you're not doing a close reading of the text. Who said to Abraham, "Now I know that you fear God..."? (Genesis 22:12). If it was God, why didn't he say, "Now I know that you fear Me."?
Also.... If we are to take the story at face value then what did this test prove or ensure? Abraham could have trusted God in this moment or just done what he did out of fear but tomorrow he rethinks his position and decides to never do that again. If God is unaware of the future then no test ensures anything and becomes meaningless.
When Jesus then lifted up his eyes, and saw a great company come unto him, he saith unto Philip, Whence shall we buy bread, that these may eat? And this he said to prove him: for he himself knew what he would do.
John 6:5-6
Why is it better that God create with the risk that some would be damned rather than the certainty? Open Theism doesn't get you off the hook. It just makes God look reckless.
That's a good question. I am persuaded that the scripture teach that the future is partly open. I think this is an important piece of making sense of the problem of hell, evil, and suffering, but it certainly doesn't fully answer the question.
I don't know for sure what you mean by damned, but since the most common belief about hell today is that God will torture the wicked forever in fire I would not be surprised if that is what you think about that subject. I would encourage you to consider the possibility that you have inherited a mistaken view of that subject and investigate that issue for yourself. I have another channel with some videos dedicated to the purpose of explaining controversies from various perspectives. I have a series about hell there that you might find interesting. This is a link to that playlist. th-cam.com/play/PL3c6ubh1HrRgFu0_zyObJ1XkZ-Cxz39RC.html
The question about suffering and evil is a harder and much broader issue than the question of hell. I have some thoughts about it, but I haven't prepared a presentation of my own on the subject. However, I would highly recommend listening to this series on the subject. It is the best thing I've heard about this by far.
restitutio.org/2020/10/22/362-why-god-allows-suffering-1-brandon-duke/
restitutio.org/2020/10/29/363-why-god-allows-suffering-2-brandon-duke/
These two episodes are good too. Another person who disagrees with some of the premises in the first two episodes raises some objections and they have a really good conversation about them.
restitutio.org/2020/11/05/364-challenging-soul-making-theodicy-1-brandon-duke-jerry-wierwille/
restitutio.org/2020/11/12/365-challenging-soul-making-theodicy-2-brandon-duke-jerry-wierwille/
Thanks for watching. I hope you find this material to be helpful.
You call it reckless that we dont make our own decisions,, ?
So you're saying when a child is raped,, it's just as God has planned?? I don't and wouldn't, follow a God that causes sadistic things to happen!,,..
And also that someone be punished for something they themselves had no control over?,,, talk about a very unfair and actually evil God your following,,,,,might as well call him Satan,,,
Believing that some things are available for me to decide does not make me an open theist. You have to ask why people decide what they decide, and the omniscient, omnismart, omnipotent God is ultimately behind those choices.
To say "God is not omniscient" is damnable heresy
Dr. David Berman: Says who? It doesn’t seem to be a command or a warning in the books of the Bible...
Nobody says "God is not imniscient". The problem is that you don't understand the open future view.
Wow,,, what scripture did you get that idea from?
God with blank spots in His mind. This is nuts
denleemel Open theism affirms that God doesn't know who's going to be born. I'd call that a blank spot
denleemel Bob enyart
denleemel God doesn't learn
denleemel You don't think it's a paradox between God being all knowing and at the same time wanting to know things about His creation?
I understand your concern but I think you misunderstand Open Theism. Open Theism believes that EVERY future possibility God knows as well as if it were certain. Open Theists to not believe that God is caught off guard or unprepared.
These are the grounds for Open Theism:
* The Lord frequently changes his mind in the light of changing circumstances, or as a result of prayer (Exod. 32:14; Num. 14:12-20; Deut. 9:13-14, 18-20, 25; 1 Sam. 2:27-36; 2 Kings 20:1-7; 1 Chron. 21:15; Jer. 26:19; Ezek. 20:5-22; Amos 7:1-6; Jonah 1:2; 3:2, 4-10). At other times he explicitly states that he will change his mind if circumstances change (Jer. 18:7-11; 26:2-3; Ezek. 33:13-15). This willingness to change is portrayed as one of God’s attributes of greatness (Joel 2:13-14; Jonah 4:2). If the future were exhaustively and eternally settled, as classical theism teaches, it would be impossible for God to genuinely change his mind about matters.
* God sometimes expresses regret and disappointment over how things turned out-even occasionally over things that resulted from his own will. (Gen. 6:5-6; 1 Sam. 15:10, 35; Ezek. 22:29-31). If the future was exhaustively and eternally settled, it would be impossible for God to genuinely regret how some of his own decisions turned out.
* At other times God tells us that he is surprised at how things turned out because he expected a different outcome (Isa. 5:3-7; Jer. 3:67; 19-20). If the future was eternally and exhaustively settled, everything would come to pass exactly as God eternally knew or determined it to be.
* The Lord frequently tests his people to find out whether they’ll remain faithful to him (Gen. 22:12; Exod. 16:4; Deut. 8:2; 13:1-3; Judges 2:20-3:5; 2 Chron. 32:31). If the future were eternally and exhaustively settled, God could not genuinely say he tests people “to know” whether they’ll be faithful or not.
* The Lord sometimes asks non-rhetorical questions about the future (Num. 14:11; Hos. 8:5) and speaks to people in terms of what may or may not happen (Exod. 3:18-4:9; 13:17; Jer. 38:17-18, 20-21, 23; Ezek. 12:1-3). If the future was exhaustively and eternally settled, God could never genuine speak about the future in terms of what “may” or “may not” happen.
Hmm, Exodus 13:17 says "When Pharaoh let the people go, God did not lead them by way of the land of the Philistines, although that was near. For God said, 'Lest the people change their minds when they see war and return to Egypt.' (ESV)
You hang a lot on 'lest', as though that's some indicator of probability, about which God isn't certain. I see no uncertainty in this verse.
If God knew all possibilities as if they were certainties, why would he regret the human race becoming almost wholly evil. Did he not anticipate and have a plan to advance from there? I guess he could regret that they made choices that mandated the flood to fix things. But why would He regret His own past actions?
And if He knows and is prepared for all probabilities, how can He possibly regret making a certain decision? Totally illogical.
why is it illogical?
Suppose even me in my finite wisdom knowing that my son will flunk his studies, being mentally prepared for this outcome. And even prepared a job for him in my company. Is it illogical to feel disappointment when I hear of his failure? When that possibility becomes reality.
Furthermore, in the realm of possibilities, not all possibilities are equal. Some possibilies are more probable than others. This leads to expectations. Disappointments and regrets are simply failed expectations.
How is it any different in an open view than the same feeling occurring in a Calvinist sovereignty view?
No Tim.
An honest parent knows there are many behavioral choices their child could make, some unacceptable and upsetting to the parent.
Yet the parent does not lock the child in their room or tie the child's hands.
@@alextz2336you make a good example, but it works just as well for the traditional theist, even the Calvinist, just as well as for your own view.
The Calvinist could say the same thing... "just because you know something is going to happen doesn't mean you're not dismayed or unhappy about it."
Why does this illustration work for you, but not for the Calvinist?
Sounds more like a defense of determinism than a defense of the open veiw. Jesse Morell and Bob Enyart are far more adept with the doctrine, and their arguments more coherent. Don't cheat yourself by stopping here.
This man seems to be very intelligent but he is not a good theologian. for one he says how could God "regret what he knew would happen", well thats ridiculous because knowing something dose not mean you will not be upset by it. He also doesn't understand the bible uses language that man understands.
Question for you, sir.....You imply that when the Bible says that God regrets, it's simply language "that man understands". Would God inspire an untrue writing of scripture in many, many instances because man can not understand that God is, in actuality, not regretting anything at any time? Aren't you asserting that you in fact do understand that God doesn't regret despite the fact that the text says that He does regret? If that's the case, then you're exceedingly great understanding of God goes even beyond what is written does it not?
It's not just about knowledge of the event, it's about ordaining and planning the event to come to pass.
@@contemplate-Matt.G anthropomorphic language is used in the Bible.
@@contemplate-Matt.G
And they heard the voice of the LORD God walking in the garden in the cool of the day: and Adam and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the LORD God amongst the trees of the garden. And the LORD God called unto Adam, and said unto him, "Where art thou?"
Question: *Did God not know where Adam was hiding?*
And Adam said, I heard thy voice in the garden, and I was afraid, because I was naked; and I hid myself. And the LORD said, "Who told thee that thou wast naked? Hast thou eaten of the tree, whereof I commanded thee not to eat?"
Question: *Did God not know if they had eaten of the forbidden tree?*
Are we to infer from this that God did not know the present? It seems to me that God often relates to his creatures on our terms, according to what we'll understand.
Your thoughts?
@@AnHebrewChild I agree that God comes to us on our level, Jesus being the greatest example of that. If God does a kind of "pretend" not to know even the present and past, this in no way proves He's also pretending not to know the future.
But for me, it's not a question of whether God knows the future because in my view, the future never exists to be known.
I believe God can say He'll do something, and if He doesn't change His mind, He'll make it happen despite man's free will. He Knows in advance what He desires to make happen. What He leaves alone, this He doesn't foreknow nor does He have to. I believe this is how the Bible reads.
Oh dear
Mike, I'm wondering if you listened to this entire talk. Will you at least admit one thing; that the only way to explain away all the passages presented here is to argue for the passages depicting God's character to be mere anthropomorphisms? Or do you use the argument that what we read is simply the "perspective" of man while in fact God's "perspective" is something wholly different?
I agree mike.
I never thought I'd be here but I just had a calvinist call me one..so I figured I better learn more then just a Google article, on why I'm not
Ephesians 1:11, "we have obtained an inheritance, having been predestined according to His purpose who works all things after the counsel of His will." Hmm, God works all things that have ever happened, are happening, and will happen according to His will? That doesn't sound like open theism.
Isaiah 41:22, "Let them bring forth and declare to us what is going to take place; as for the former events, declare what they were, that we may consider them and know their outcome. Or announce to us what is coming." Hmm, so God challenges idols to tell Him exactly what will happen in the future and what the outcome of every event in the past was? That must mean God knows everything that is going to happen in the future and planned for everything that happened in the past to occur. Not only that, He knew exactly what the outcome was for every event in the past. That doesn't sound like open theism.
Acts 2:23, "this Man, delivered over by the predetermined plan and foreknowledge of God, you nailed to a cross by the hands of godless men and put Him to death." Hmm, so God not only knew about, but PLANNED the crucifixion of Jesus? That doesn't sound like open theism.
God is not just the world's best slot machine that can turn whatever we give Him into the best thing possible. He is a sovereign God who planned how everything would happen before the foundation of the earth based solely on His will.
reknew.org/2008/01/ephesians-111/
reknew.org/2008/01/what-about-acts-223-and-428/
These are Boyd's responses to Ephesians 1:11 and Act 2:23 respectively.
As for the passage in Isaiah I think it is very easy to understand this under the lense of open theism. "as for the former events, declare what they were, that we may consider them and know their outcome" God can easily know these pasts events with absolute certainty and why they occurred since they have already occurred and he is omniscient. "Or announce to us what is coming." God also knows future certainties as certain and possibilities as possibilities. This view of open theism is not a wide open free for all so there are events that are set in stone such as God ruling in the end. Notice when asking about future events it does not include "declare what they *ARE*, that we may consider them and know their outcome" I think this is actually some decent evidence to support that perhaps some future events have different possible outcomes and aren't complete certainties.
Anyway, hope that will help clarify this interpretation of scripture for you.
I predestine according to my purpose that you argue with me that you are predetermined to be wrong.
"works all things according to his will" do you believe God does everything in the Universe? If someone rapes someone, it's not just that God allows it or plans it... but you think he WORKS it? wow, you've made God not only the author of sin, but the only real sinner that ever lived.
Fortunately the real God isn't according to your illogical gnostic nonsense view of scripture. If we know God is Holy and God can't sin, if we know God is righteous and he judges man's actions, then we know He's not "working" you to sin, and he's not the worker of that sin.
So how do we read it so it's not contrary to the rest of the BIble? simple:
All things are here, in this hypothetical basket of "all things", they're already there, he made the universe and us, we sinned and did things with those things that were evil so now there are broken, messed up terrible things in the basket of "all things". He didn't make the terrible, he made the things that we twisted with sin into terrible things... he then takes "all things" in that basket, and he WORKS them, together for good. It's like kneading dough. If I take dough someone else put yeast in and flour... but I can then take that dough and "work it together" for the good of making it into bread. God makes the wheat and yeast and water... we do things with the things God gave us... then God takes those things and makes something wonderful with it.
That's working all things for good. It doesn't mean you are the only agent... it doesn't mean God rapes women and children, molests little boys, sets people on fire, all for his Glory... that's not what it means. Heck, lets ignore the really evil stuff... he works bubble gum wrappers? Romance Novels? Pornography? No... he doesn't DO those things, he takes those things we DO and he WORKS them out... he takes our lemons and makes lemonade. How is this not one of the core themes of all of scripture? It's incredibly obvious: God the redeemer, what does it mean to redeem the lost but to take the sin and ruination of others and make something beautiful out of it... "beauty for ashes".
I love the smell of heresy in the morning 🇺🇸🚁🚁🚁📣🎶🔥🔥🤠🏄🤙
This is the most incomprehensible argument I've ever listened to and predominantly because it appears to be divorced entirely from the entire counsel of God. Very poor hermeneutics appear to be used in interpreting scripture in his supposed biblical justification of OT. That he finds himself as more clever than orthodox theologians is surely telling of his spiritual fruit.
Examples would be much more helpful
This is totally contradictory. 1 moment he says God is infinitely wise and knows all possible things. But then he makes God to make bad choices, which denies his character of knowing all things.
Or
Open theism is trash and God determines all things for his purpose and his glory. So that his wishes are fulfilled and becuase he is he creator we are the creature.
Case in point God wanted to find someone to change his mind but could not so he had to wipe out or judge them
I don't know that I would go so far as Greg goes in saying that God knows all possibilities about the future. I'm not saying He doesn't know all possibilities, but the scriptures don't give us explicit statements either way. There do seem to be hints that real novelty exists even for God. For example there are numerous verses in scripture that talk about people singing new songs to God. If God knows all future possibilities as if they were certainties then there wouldn't really be such a thing as new song because every possible song that could ever be written by anyone would have already existed in God's mind as a possibility. In such a reality it would actually be the case that in a sense God's knowledge wouldn't develop it would just change from a set of possibilities to fewer and fewer future possibilities, more and more certainties, and most of all, lots of things that could have been that weren't. I'm not saying that isn't how it is, but that does seem a little strange to me.
I'm inclined to think that God is omnicompetent in that He knows everything as it actually is and is wise enough to deal with whatever happens even if people do things that were unlikely to occur. I don't recall Greg characterizing any of God's prior choices as being bad ones. He does say that God regretted the choices He made, but that is what the scriptures plainly say. That doesn't mean that God made a bad choice. That means that people made bad choices so much so that God regretted giving them the power to go so wrong because of how they misused the authority He gave them. It turned out badly, but that doesn't mean that God's choices were bad for giving people that kind of freedom.
@@michaelthechristian8286 , I get the feeling that a lot of open theists feel like they need to say that God knows the full extent of all the particular future possibilities because saying otherwise sounds a little bit like saying that there are things that God doesn't know. I get that the argument that God is infinite and you can't fraction up infinity is pretty compelling, and I don't necessarily disagree with it in principle. However, that is going beyond what the scriptures actually say, so I'm reluctant to make statements like that. I suppose it is theoretically possible that God knows everything particular outcome that is possible, but the idea that God must know what all those possibilities are in advance doesn't seem to be logically entailed by the fact that He knows all things. It might be that future possibilities are real but that they don't exist in any real sense other than as a set of potentialities based in the authority God has delegated to others and the scope of the power they may attain rather than a fixed set of knowable possibilities. In that case real novelty could exist for God. We wouldn't have to think that God must have contemplated all the very worst extremes of evil that could potentially exist. And, we would have no reason to make appeals about the scope of God's knowledge that aren't based on scripture. The longer I have been an open theist the less some of the concerns about God's knowledge even seem relevant. God is powerful enough to judge everyone when the time comes. He has delegated much authority to us, but not forever. He call accomplish the purposes He is pleased to accomplish because He is so wise and because of the apparent scope of what He is determined to accomplish.
People often think that it is His purpose to determine and control everything on the basis of verses like Isaiah 46:10 and Ephesians 1:13. I can see how easy it is to infer that from the text, but it isn't stated there or anywhere else in scripture that I know of. We have to look elsewhere to see what God's purposes are. It seems to me that His purposes at least insofar as they are revealed to us in scripture are very limited compared to that. He definitely wants us to love Him and each other and He wants to live with us on the new earth, but besides that I'm not sure that we are told many other specifics about the things He is determined to accomplish. If His purposes are limited primarily to those goals then He wouldn't need to know much about the future at all to accomplish what He wants. Since He is wise He will know the best way to deal with each of us, and since He is powerful He won't have any trouble at the judgement.
A person with lack of faith will end up with a open theism conclusion upon reading scriptures. Ecclesiastes 8:16-17.
Marcos Pou that's an interesting comment. This is from the contemporary English translation of the second verse you cited "I saw everything God does, and I realized no one can really understand what happens. We may be very wise, but no matter how much we try or how much we claim to know, we cannot understand it all.
Ecclesiastes 8:17" I've never encountered an open theist who claimed to understand all that God does or all the things that happen in the earth. Greg Boyd in particular has often made the case that all people are massively ignorant, not to be insulting but just to point out how each of us only knows the tiniest fraction of what is real. He usually makes this pint as part of a larger argument to support his interpretation of God's response to Job out of the whirlwind near the end of the book of Job. Both Job and his friends assume that God was the one afflicting Job, and lots of people understand the point of the book to be found in Job's first comment "The Lord gave, and the Lord has taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord ."
Job 1:21. I'm inclined to agree with Greg that the point of the book isn't found there, but rather that it's found in God's response to Job that He prefaced by saying "Who is this that darkens counsel by words without knowledge?"
Job 38:2. Then God spends 4 chapters outlining lots of details about the physical creation and ancient near eastern mythological beasts (Rahab, Behemoth, and Leviathan) that we know almost nothing about. I think the point God was making is that Job assumed he correctly understood the source of his affliction and while God didn't directly tell Job where his afflictions were coming from He did point out that Job was massively ignorant and I think at least by implication that his conclusions were wrong, if not then why the refutation? In any case I say all this to say that I don't pretend to know everything and they pint of open theism isn't to suggest that any human knows everything about the world or even about how God deals with the world. The claims of open theism are much more modest than that. As I see it, the central claim of open theism isn't really a point about God at all. It's rather a claim that the bible presents a view of reality that many aspects of the future remain unsettled and that God knows all reality as it is. If the future is partly undetermined then God would know it as such. That is to say, we don't believe that God is wrong about the future. He doesn't know the future is settled of it isn't because that would be a false belief and we wouldn't want to ascribe false beliefs to God.
A lack of faith in what? Classical Theism that came about long after the time of Christ? Let's face it...the Bible itself doesn't present a systematic theology of cosmology. The Apostles never taught an exact doctrine of how God's sovereignty functions. We have to piece such ideas together based on other things the Bible says and how it utilizes language.
I guess Jonah, the ninevites and David had very weak faith since they all acted like the future is open.
So God didn’t know that Adam and Eve were going to sin but he was ready just in case... ok lol
Not really a strong objection. God planned on them sinning because their sinning was so highly probable it was inevitable AND the world to be made from redeemed humanity was greater than a world in which humans never sinned because the forgiven much love much.
@@Hambone3773inevitable? As in, "infallibly come to pass"? If you don't like the infallible terminology (which simply means without fail) we can use the philosophical term "necessarily"
That kind of inevitability? How inevitable are we talking here?
Genuinely curious. I'm not looking to argue, but rather to understand the thought process undergirding this.
@@AnHebrewChild inevitable in the sense that the probability was so overwhelmingly high that it would be foolish not to expect it and wise to make plans around it.
It's why the plan of salvation was bassd on murder.
I am am open Theist but I hate the "regret" argument. I think "repent" is a better translation for one and for two it describes an acknowledgment to the angels who opposed the creation of mankind as God's image bearing agent that they were correct that free willed man made of dust is unworthy of being God's image bearer. God always knew the fall was an inevitability and planned for it. Just like he knew they would kill his son and planned on using it as the means of atonement. If there is one thing God can count on it is humans sinning.
But the ultimate creation was never perfect angels but redeemed fallen humans in the nation of Isreal and the church made perfect through redemption and that was God's cosmic display of manifold wisdom to the objecting angels.
The flexible sovereignty of God? This statement alone is disturbing.
+Chad Daniels. Should we automatically assume that what it means for God to be sovereign is that He wants to control everything? It seems to me that if God is truly free that sovereignty would mean that He would have the power to do whatever He wants to do even if that means that He wants to give up unilateral control of part of what comes to pass by creating beings with a measure of self determining freedom who can decide some things for themselves.
Paul Mussell When God created the world, did he already know that Jesus Christ would have to come in the flesh to redeem mankind?
+Chad Daniels That's a great question. Most people would probably say of course. It is after all at the very center of the focus of the bible's message. I think that Ephesians 1 makes it very clear that God intended to adopt people as sons "in Christ", but so far as I can tell the bible is silent about how else that might have happened if sin hadn't entered the world. As I consider the scriptures it seems clear that God is clearly portrayed as being omniscient, but for various reasons that Greg expounds on in some detail in this video it also seems clear that the future is to some degree unsettled and therefore known by God as such. That is to say the future consists partly of facts that have already been resolved by one mechanism or another. Future facts may be settled by God's will, for example He has determined that Jesus will judge people for what they have done whether good or bad. Some facts may be settled because of the regularity of the universe. Still others may be settled as the result of the solidified character of free agents. However some facts about the future remain unsettled which I think are mostly issues related to choices that humans, angels, demons, perhaps even animals to a small degree may decide. It seems to me that before Adam and Eve sinned that it yet remained possible that they would not sin. In that case Jesus would not have needed to come to redeem mankind in the flesh or otherwise. So, in short my answer is that of course God knew that it was possible that they would sin and in that case that Jesus would come in the flesh to redeem us, but I don't see any scriptural basis for concluding that it was certain that Adam and Eve would sin and that Jesus would definitely have to redeem us. If God knows reality perfectly and it was at one time uncertain whether they would sin or not, then at that time God would have known it was possible that they would sin or that they wouldn't sin.
Paul Mussell "If God knows reality perfectly"
Amazing that this is even a question....
+Chad Daniels I guess I phrased that in an unfortunate way. I mean that I believe that God does know reality perfectly and that as such He knows certainties as certainties and possibilities as possibilities, but He most certainly cannot know something is certain if in fact it is yet uncertain (though possible) because then we would be saying that God knows something is true that is actually false or perhaps that God knows something is false that is actually true.
this is a joke
Open Theism is heretical view that God does not know all things.If this guy thinks God knows all things he is not an open theist. Open theism is the belief that God dose not know the future
That is a common charge that people make about open theism, but it's actually a mischaracterization of what most open theists believe. Most open theists believe that God does know the future. The difference between what an open theist and other Christians believe about the future is that future possibilities really are real. If what is true about the future is that more than one possible outcome is possible then it God would know that. That is to say that God would know every possible possible future. Other Christians often assume that there is one single future that will definitely come to pass and that the certainty of that future is either determined by the decree of God in the eternal past which fixed all events (as in Calvinism) or they think that God's knowledge in the eternal past is somehow dependent on the free will choices of humans in time (as in Arminianism). Some people hold to the idea of Molinism which is kind of a mixture of those and would take more time to explain than I have right now. However the point is that the debate between open theists and other more traditional perspectives is about the nature and content of the future and sometimes about the kind of world that God decided to create. Since God is omniscient he would know the future perfectly. If the future is an exhaustively presettled reality, by whatever means, then God would know all of the future as settled. If the future contains real possibilities then God would know what all the possibilities are and the probability of each precisely because He is omniscient.
Please define "future"
After listening to this lecture about five times, I believe I've found a chink in the armor. It has to do with the chess player analogy and how God thinks and acts. In analyzing it (the chess player analogy), I think it falls short because it presents God in too much of a machine-like fashion where-in his actions become that of an assembly-line, which is like Calvinism and is what Boyd is trying to avoid. This analogy does not take into account the 'human' factor.
To go a little random, this point is well illustrated in the movie 'Sully.' In the movie, Sully is faulted for not having the 'immediate' correct reaction in the dual-engine loss situation. Because he had to consider for 30 seconds or more what he needed to do, this resulted in the airplane landing in the water versus landing back on the runway. And since the Scripture tells us God too has 'reactions' and things happen that he wasn't expecting, we would have to say the same would be true for God as was for Sully. That 'reaction' time means the outcome may turn out differently than it could have.
Real-life is not like a chess game, in that in a chess game there can be a lack of emotion. In real-life, there are real reactions by both people and God. So, taking this into account, I think the chess player analogy falls short. For God to always be anticipating the alternatives would mean he couldn't leave time for emotional 'reactions' because the very reaction can change the outcome.
To ease people's minds, I will say I do find the overall argument of Open Theism as very strong and hold it as my personal position, but I think the chess thing needs addressed. I would love to hear Boyd respond to this.
..open theism.. ..are you kidding me.. ..utterly void of all logic and reason..
At the end you say God wants all to be saved and stuff. If the open view is right He could just give everyone a similar experience as He did give to apostle Paul and problem solved. This view doesnt make much sense
Some people do have that experience and are saved by it. Everyone is different and God knows each one of us and what is going to work with us. Paul already believed in God but didn't think he was doing wrong as he didn't recognise Christ's identity. When Stephen was stoned to death, Paul was there (Acts 7). Stephen had said he saw the Son of Man at the right hand side of God, which they saw as blasphemy. So Paul got a witness before his encounter with Jesus. God worked on him gradually then he got struck down and faced Jesus. Not all of us would react the same way. Some people might run if they're scared of Jesus doing that. But he knew the timing with Paul and how to reach him.
God has limited himself through the disciples and their preaching. Thats how he chose to work. Who are you o man to answer back to God?
The experience given to a divinely appointed messenger who thenselves gas unique motives and goals, vs everyone else (their audience) is going to be different.
Please repent of open theism.. it's heresy
I'm very cautious to call something "heresy" because who am I and under what authority am I able to make those claims, but in this case I am as close as it comes to calling it heresy as I can be. Open theism cherry picks verses. It doesn't attempt to understand the passage in any deep and meaningful way, especially in context to the other verses, it makes the promises of God hopes and dreams and limits God to a superior power. Instead of all things being held together by the power of his word, God must "take risks" and wait to see the outcome of even His own decisions.
@@blusheep2 The promises of God aren't hopes and dreams when God is briliant and wise, He is so wise that He actually can achieve what He wants in a world with creatures with libertarian free will and future being partly open.
I think God in partly open future is way more powerful and smart than God in future settled from eternitiy.
@@dimitartodorov4826 To each his own but it makes God out to be guessing. IF by saying that he is so wise that he can predict everything that can ever happen accurately and therefore he can inject himself into history when he needs to prod it in one direction or another then you are really only saying that God is actually omniscient and God doesn't take any risks.
That isn't what open theism teaches. Open theism teaches that he doesn't know what we are going to do. He only thinks he knows and therefore "risk." And if He takes a risk with me, on my level, and all of history is one risk after the other then God can't predict anything or if He can then his predictions are just that... predictions. Like an investor predicts the outcome of a companies stocks. Most of the time he will be right but sometimes he gets it wrong.
That is limiting God or making him more powerful and smarter.
My biggest problem with Open theism is that they all sound like atheists. I've been talking with atheists for about 5 years now and open theists and atheists use the same reasoning and arguments. Open theists sound like people that are on the edge of giving up their faith but have found a way to rationalize all the difficult pieces in the Bible like hell, penal substitution, genocide in the OT, etc.
For the open theist, hell doesn't exist, everyone goes to heaven with various rewards, penal substitution is not a thing, and the conquering of Canaan wasn't commanded by God but only perceived by the Hebrews to have been commanded so.
@@blusheep2 Its not limiting God since He had a plan what to do as every possiblity was certain. Like how the chess master is limited if He is ready for every possible move you can make. Not knowing with certainty which move are you gonna chose doesnt change a thing since He is prepared for whatever you play.
I dont know if "they sound like an atheists" its a sound argument. Open theists have different views on hell, I mean there many non-open theists with different view on hell. Christ Date for example is a famous calvinist who support annihilationism aka conditional immorality.
I no, for the open theist everyone doesnt go to heaven. What are you describing is universalism and very few people hold this position today, in fact I dont know even one Open Theist holding universalism.
Different people have different views of OT genocides. Greg Boyd is the only open theist I know saying that the genocides are not commands from God.
@@dimitartodorov4826 I admit that my exposure to Open Theism is primarily Greg Boyd. I've been to his church by the way, a few years back before I even knew that Open Theism was a thing. My wife had been watching the podcasts of his service for a few months and really wanted to attend. Although his sermon was fine other things about the church raised some red flags. Primarily their tiny library of books for sale. They were books promoting stuff like the Documentary Hypothesis and written by his number 2 pastor, though the name slips my mind. That was a real shock to me.
I then have an acquaintance that I see one a year who was heavily influenced by Greg Boyd. That is where I heard the "universalism" side of Open Theism but if that isn't generally accepted nowadays in Open Theist circles then I think that is good. Of course, I'm forced to wonder why it ever was. Her view was, sort of, the opposite of Chris Date. Everyone gets eternal life but only some enter the New Jerusalem.
The third exposure to OT was from Pastor Mike Winger who did a teaching on it. He did primarily focus on Greg Boyd. So, maybe this is why I have seen Greg Boyd as the poster child for OpenT.
How is an infinite number of plans a plan at all. Isn't that just reaction? When Ezekiel prophesied the rise of Babylon then Persia, then the Greeks, then the Romans and did so with incredible detail, that speaks to a God that knows what will happen. Not a God that guesses what will happen and had a plan for each contingency. Think about it a bit. If God constantly adjusts his plans to fit the unknown choices of humans then how does he predict such detail 100s of years in the future? That would mean that either 1)God is going to inject himself against man's free will constantly, in order to steer the future, which is very Calvanistic, or 2)God can predict the future decisions of humans so perfectly that there is no difference from omniscience. There is no risk.
I think the real problem here is that we are trying to describe God's actions on a timeline. God though is timeless. He is eternal. We live on a single dimension of time and it flows for us in only one direction. It might be that God exists in an infinite number of timelines so that on our timeline God takes risks but because he exists on an infinite number of intersecting timelines to our then He also knows the past and the future as if they are all "now."
In philosophy there is a discussion about the nature of time. Its often referred to as A theory or B theory of time. I've always been partial to the A theory of time which what we experience. One minute leads to the next and it only flows in one direction. But then I began to read some quanutm mechanics. Specifically the Quantum observer effect and Quantum decoherence. I'm no expert and the topic is relatively new to me but in order to test the quantum observer effect they did an experiment on Quantum decoherence. So, just in case you are unfamiliar... the quantum observer effect essentially says that a particle exists as a wave of possibilities until it is measured by a conscious observer which causes it to collapse into one of its probabilities. The decoherence experiment put this to the test and found it to be true but they found something else that was really interesting. Something they observed late in time had an effect on what the particle did in the past. A present observation effected what the particle did in the past. Very interesting but it sounds a lot more like the B theory of time or what is sometimes called the "block universe."
I'm not convinced but this demonstrates how wacky reality really is and trying to fit God into our limited perceptions is probably not going to describe truth. So, when I see God predicting highly detailed future events, I can't conclude that God takes risks. At least not in the sense that we take risks. There has to be much more to it that we just don't see.
Maybe there is a way for God to be a risk taker and omniscient at the same time. Who knows but He is omniscient.
To be honest his argument from God regretting backfires against if he is consistent. Since per his claim God knows every possibility as a certainty then God cannot genuinely regret even his view. After all why would God regret over a possibility that became actualized when he not only knew it could happen, but knew it as a certainty, meaning knew that it would certainly happen? So he is speaking out of both sides of his mouth.
I think you must have misunderstood what Greg was saying. I've watched this video multiple times and heard him speak about this topic in many other instances. I can appreciate how you could think that he was saying this because he does talk kind of fast sometimes and it could have sounded like what you thought. He's not saying that God knows the future as certain because that would be logically impossible if the future isn't certain/definite. What he was saying is that because God is omniscient that He can be as prepared to deal with anything that actually does happen as effectively as if it was certain that it would happen.
Paul Mussell
I went back and reheard what he said and I think you didn't understand my reply. He did say that God knows each possibility as if it was a certainty. Therefore, when mankind became so corrupt that God had no choice but to destroy them by flood, God knew this possible outcome of the human condition as a certainty. If this were so then it makes no sense even on your view for God to regret and or feel sorry that he made man unless he didn't even foresee this as a possibility.
The interpretation is that God could predict and plan for it as if it were a certainty, but that doesn't mean God doesn't expect or anticipate an alternative or better decision. Boyd's interpretation of providence is that God works with possibilities and probabilities rather than a rigidly linear string of events, so it can make sense for something to upset or anger God especially if said event was not a probable outcome.
I think it makes even less sense for God to regret or be sorry that he made man under the deterministic interpretation of scripture. How can God genuinely regret or be sorry about something he manipulated to happen? I'd like to know what your take is on this, because I have yet to get a really satisfactory (at least IMO) answer from a calvinist on this topic.
Anyway, hope this was helpful in clarifying the position.
I understand your point and I see how you would draw this conclusion, but I don't think regret comes from a place of uncertainty. For example, if you bought a pit bull (I love pit bulls, just an analogy) and you knew it was possible that he would turn on someone but just as possible (and maybe even probable) that he would not, couldn't you still feel regret for getting him if he did the worst possible action and killed someone? My point is that regret is not a response to something we didn't know was possible, but rather a response to a horrible outcome that we would have rather avoided.
***** You're actually comparing how God, an eternal being, reacts in time with the way "His creation" reacts in time? You can't see the difference? Tell me, Mike, what is it like to be the same today, yesterday and forever?
You don't know, right? Because you're constantly changing and evolving, right? We're made in God's image. Translation: God's not like us, we're like God.