I'll take on any determinist (Calvinist, Thomist, Molinist) right here

[Coder]

TheOpenTheist:

BRING IT ON DETERMINISTS!

You need a hobby.

 

[cynic]

RyanL:

Expose me. Where am I wrong? Einsteinian space-time is actually a “thing”. It’s not a “measurement” in the sense that, say, a cup of water is a measurement. Look it up.

While “one” cannot be outside of it, “One” can. You have given no logical or philisophical basis for saying that I am wrong. Until you do, my statements stand.

God Bless,
RyanL

P.S., Your mistake is in believing that predestination and free will are mutually exclusive. This is not the case. You may want to read the link I linked in post #14.

Although with the future known to God we still have the ability to choose IN THEORY, in other words although we could have chosen differently (free will in the strictist sense) man simply doesn’t have the ability to exercise it in any meaningful way. If this is true then whether we can choose has no bearing on what we will choose, and since what we will choose is already known to God, then he must, at least in third person, be the author of evil. It also begs the question, how does he judge someone he knew would not repent, continue to sin etc. when he knew this as he was creating them. Again it goes back to the Calvanist idea that God created evil and the wicked to make good look more good, to make good evident by it’s contrast with evil.

 

[Mystophilus]

TheOpenTheist:

In fact, if you can show me and those reading this that there is any evidence at all that God knows the entire future as completely settled, then I will concede defeat.

But, if I can show that God has changed Him mind or shown that He does not know the future as a completely settled reality, then that will prove that the Open View of Creation is correct.

I would consider it highly probable that quite a few people here could show quite a few other people here evidence of all sorts of things, and that some of those shown would then alter their own assumptions. I am not sure that I have such faith in you, however, and I sincerely apologise for this lack. What inspires my doubt is the fact that you present this not as a genuine inquiry in which you seek to discover what is right, but rather as a challenge in which you seek to ‘prove’ who is right, having already asserted that this will be yourself.

Discussions with people who conduct such arguments are rarely fruitful, not least because any argument can be rendered void by a retreat into solipsism. ‘proof’ and ‘evidence’ are never inarguable, if the disputant is sufficiently zealous, and your initial post, I am afraid, rings of zeal in giant letters.

 

[Krebsbach]

Dear Open Theist and everyone,

This is interesting stuff. I first heard of open theism several years ago in connection with Greg Boyd, who was then a professor of something at Bethel in the Twin Cities. He was interrviewed in one of Lee Strobel’s books, a Case for Faith, I think. Anyway, Boyd wasn’t the first to espouse O.T.–a guy named Pinnock is more prominent–but what caught my eye was a reference to Boyd’s doctoral dissertation which had to do with Whiteheadian process theology. That I know a little bit about. Whitehead was a pretty smart guy who once collaborated with Bertrand Russell on the Mathematica Principia, flirted with Catholicism, and did lots of things. Anyway, Boyd latched onto Whitehead’s metaphysical postualte that the fundamental unit of analysis, if you will, is not being but the event. Reality is process, one event after another. That is another way to define time. Stuff happening. One dang thing after another. Reality is then divided into the determined past, the happening present, the cutting edge of reality, and the indeterminate and unactualized future. If the future is unactualized and undetermined, then how can God know it? Whitehead and other process theologians pose some interesting questions to classical theism, ones which haven’t been adequately dealt with IMHO.

But anyway, folks need to realize that process theologians mostly come from a panentheistic view of God. God is more than all of cosmos in the sense that he is inclusive of all of it, but he is not outside of it. There is nothing, not even God, outside of the cosmos and time.

Folks like Boyd think they can reconcile Chrisianity with a basically panentheistic view of God. I think there are things to be learned from this, but in the end it results in diminished veiw of the Deity which does not incorporate all what we know of God from revelation.

cordially

Karl

 

[Mystophilus]

** **
Major Premise: Change requires time.
Minor Premise: God, who created time, is by His very nature outside of time.

Conclusion: God cannot change.

On the basis of omnipotence, I would like to suggest a revision of this to ‘does not change’.

 

[Mystophilus]

Lazerlike42:

In other words, He knows what will happen tommorow. He knows that because He saw it was going to happen. He also may have answered prayers people will say tommorow so as to change what will happen. This doesn’t change what is going to happen. He knew the prayers were going to be said, so He chose to answer them, so from the beginning He chose to make whatever happens happen as a result of the prayers He answers.

It’s confusing I know. Someone knows what I’m trying to say… help me out.

Actually, I thought that you said it just fine.

 

[Mystophilus]

MichaelLewis:

I’m an agnostic, but I do think that agent libertarianism is incoherent. I like to ask agent libertarians about the first decision, X, that a child is morally responsible for. Before X, by hypotheses, the child has not been responsible for anything, including who she is up to the point of making decision X. Her decision could be a product of who she is before she makes the decision (who she is as determined by some combination of her genetics, her life experiences, and perhaps her God-given soul), her external circumstances as she makes the decision, and/or some random event. In any case, I don’t see where you get libertarian free will. We aren’t self-creating, so we can’t be responsible for who we are, at least not at the point of the first choice we are morally responsible for. It seems to me that we are morally responsible for an action just because it reflects our character (regardless of why are character is such as it is). We can rightly criticize or praise a child for making decision X because that decision does reflect who she is, and we need no other justification.“Agent libertarianism”, huh? Interesting.

What strikes me as most interesting here are the notions of “decision” and “choice”. I would suggest that a person starts to make choices when she ceases to simply react automatically to stimuli, instead having options for action from which to choose. Moral responsibility would then come when she is able to comprehend the consequences of these actions. Obviously, mortal comprehension is always going to be limited, and thus, I would contend, moral responsibility is correspondingly decreased.

Under these conditions, wheresoever other factors impede the decision-making process in any way, they reduce responsibility: not guilty of sin by reason of diminished mental capacity.

 

[Mystophilus]

Gottle of Geer:

If God is not omniscient, Christian faith collapses.

I have to disagree with this, on the basis that I have known quite a few people who do not believe that God is omniscient, and yet remain Christians. It takes all types.

 

[Mystophilus]

cynic:

Although with the future known to God we still have the ability to choose IN THEORY, in other words although we could have chosen differently (free will in the strictist sense) man simply doesn’t have the ability to exercise it in any meaningful way. If this is true then whether we can choose has no bearing on what we will choose, and since what we will choose is already known to God, then he must, at least in third person, be the author of evil. It also begs the question, how does he judge someone he knew would not repent, continue to sin etc. when he knew this as he was creating them.

As popular as this view is, I am unconvinced.

If we assume that God is omnipotent, and consequentially omniscient, then God knows what we shall do. We, however, do not know. Within the tiny confines of our own consciousness, we choose one option from the perceived range of possibilities, and it is that choice for which we are morally responsible: the choice, not the action.

The argument runs that God, by knowing in advance what we shall do, could choose to alter the universe in such a way as to alter the outcome of our decision-making process. However, so long as we perceived options, we would have choices, and be responsible for those. Only if God so altered the world that we had only one option for each action would we actually be deprived of our free will and our responsibility for same.

While I accept the idea that God is partially responsible for suffering, i.e., for the effects of actions, I remain thoroughly sceptical towards the idea that God is at all responsible for evil, i.e., for the choices which are made.

(However, I am not really conscious at this point: I am so tired that I am falling out of my chair, and so I will return later.)

 

[RyanL]

Mystophilus:

On the basis of omnipotence, I would like to suggest a revision of this to ‘does not change’.

I see your point, and I will use that in the future. I’m not entirely sure, however, that omnipotence means being able to do nonsense. I don’t think God can simultaneously walk through a wall and not walk through a wall. For the same reason, God cannot make a rock bigger than He can lift because that is nonsense, like asking God to make a 2 sided triangle. It is simply a meaningless combination of words. I also don’t think God can “do” evil, as perfect good cannot produce evil - if it did, it wouldn’t be perfectly good. A perfectly good Being could create another being who had the capacity to create evil, and this would not violate the “nonsense principle”. That is the case I believe we have here. Additionally, I’m not certain that God can change, as change connotes a process, most likely a “becoming more full”, which it would seem that God cannot by His very nature do. If He is not perfected in fullness, He is lacking.

Like I said, I think your point is a valid criticism, and I will not it in the future.

God Bless,
RyanL

 

[Contarini]

cynic:

If there is such a thing as ‘time’, and God knows what will happen in the ‘future’, then he knew what we would do as he made us, knows whether we wil go to hell or heaven, and by implication, destined us to either hell or heaven (if he knew what we would do when he made us, and if the future is set, then he destined us to do those things, you can’t deny it)

That’s simplistic. Of course I can’t deny that there is a sense in which God destines people for heaven or hell. But there are many senses in which the word “destine” can be used. You just lump them all together and throw nuance in the wastebasket. If you like to approach difficult matters of philosophy that way, then that’s your privilege. I find such an approach totally unconvincing.

So the idea of God knowing a set future that wil not change - assuming time is not merely a human concept - is inseparable from a Clavanist point of view,

Which version of Calvinism? What about Thomism, which is older than Calvinism (at least as taught by Aquinas–granted the term often applies to a form of Catholic theology roughly contemporaneous with the flowering of Calvinist scholasticism)? What about Molinism?

Again, you’re using a meat cleaver where a toothpick is needed.

becuase there is by definition an elect and damned,

Well yes, that has never been in dispute among orthodox Christians. The language is right there in the New Testament.

and right and wrong exist only in the distinct ways in which they glorify God.

Well, in a sense that’s true. Everything exists to glorify God. Again, Scripture is quite explicit about this. But Scripture also teaches that parts of God’s creation defy Him and that He grieves over this. Any Christian theology worth its salt must do justice to both these things. You rule out this possibility from the start because, apparently, it doesn’t fit your rather narrow view of the universe.

Reality is mysterious and paradoxical. Don’t blame me for that.

Edwin

 

[Mystophilus]

RyanL:

I’m not entirely sure, however, that omnipotence means being able to do nonsense. I don’t think God can simultaneously walk through a wall and not walk through a wall. For the same reason, God cannot make a rock bigger than He can lift because that is nonsense, like asking God to make a 2 sided triangle. It is simply a meaningless combination of words.

I think that the problem here lies in the fact that omnipotence is such an absolute concept that it violates the rules of systems such as logic. Thus, I would suggest that God can make a two-sided triangle, make 2+2=5, fulfil two simultaneous and mutually-exclusive conditions, or make rock which even God cannot lift. This would simply mean that the universe would not function in the way in which we currently understand it to. ‘nonsense’, after all, is merely an expression which we use to describe something which does not conform to our quite limited comprehension of the universe.

I also don’t think God can “do” evil, as perfect good cannot produce evil - if it did, it wouldn’t be perfectly good. A perfectly good Being could create another being who had the capacity to create evil, and this would not violate the “nonsense principle”.

Thus, I would suggest that the ‘nonsense principle’ can be, and has just been, circumvented: for a perfectly good God to commit evil is nonsense, but for a perfectly good God to create another creature which commits evil is possible, and yet the perfectly good God is complicit to some degree through having knowingly created the creature.

Stepping back to the rock, could Jesus lift the Temple Mount? There is always a way, especially when you can do anything.

That is the case I believe we have here. Additionally, I’m not certain that God can change, as change connotes a process, most likely a “becoming more full”, which it would seem that God cannot by His very nature do. If He is not perfected in fullness, He is lacking.

I am not certain that God needs to become either more or less perfect in order to change. Without actual proof, I would expect that there are an effectively infinite number of ways in which God could change (if God so chose), and this suggests that there may well be an infinite number of ways in which God could change without changing that aspect also. After all, we can reasonably say that God ‘changed’ when God incarnated as Jesus, because God was not flesh at any other point (of which we are aware). Did this make God any more or less perfect?

I would contend that the character of God does not change, as indeed God says (Malachi 3:6), but that God can change form.

I guess that what I am saying here is that I am a literalist when it comes to the idea of omnipotence: I believe that God can do literally any thing. Thus, the answer to any question which begins “Could God…” is “Yes.” The question of “Would God…” is an entirely separate issue, and this is where I would place the idea of God perpetrating evil: ‘could’, but ‘does not’.

For all of this, I think that we need to remember the atemporal consciousness which is attendant upon omniscience. I think that God’s character does not change over time because it is not subject to sequential stimuli, but exists in a singular moment of response and interaction.

 

[TheOpenTheist]

OK. I had a much busier weekend than expected due to my brother coming home from Ball State and demanding that I help chop up a huge tree into small pieces of firewood lol And the Respect Life events were much longer than I anticipated, but thats a good thing because I made new friends and pro-life allies that I will work with for a long while. Now I am rested and able to respond to any serious assertions and propositions concerning God and His relation to His creation.

I’ll break down my responses into several posts because there is a limit of 5000 characters in a post or something like that. Hmmmm, but how should I break these posts up? God has not determined how I will respond or in what method, so I will ponder how best to respond for a minute or so and then give a detailed response…

pondering…

deliberating…

pondering…

…I’ve decided to respond to everything posted between my first and second posts. Then I will respond to each new argument after that between my second and third posts.

At least, I will do that in my very next post

 

[RyanL]

You could always start an “Open Thiest” blog (completely free) and link us to it…then you wouldn’t be limited at all!

God Bless,
RyanL

 

[TheOpenTheist]

RyanL stated

Major Premise: Change requires time.
Minor Premise: God, who created time, is by His very nature outside of time.

Conclusion: God cannot change.

You are reifying time. Time is not a thing. Its not an “entity”. To make an entity out of a non-entity is to reify that non-entity. Time is simply a conceptual construct used to refer to sequence or duration. God has always experienced sequence or duration because the Trinitarian life has always consisted of the Father loving the Son and the Son loving the Father and the Father loving the Holy Spirit etc. There never was a time in the past where the Trinitarian love was not being expressed and received. There is no such thing as non-sequential love. Love is something you do.

At the very least, you must admit that once God created the universe He experiences sequence or temporality. This fact is demonstrated on just about every page of the Bible. One of the first and most striking examples of God experiencing His creation temporally is in Gen 6:4-9

Genesis 6:4-9 There were giants on the earth in those days, and also afterward, when the sons of God came in to the daughters of men and they bore children to them. Those were the mighty men who were of old, men of renown. 5 Then the Lord saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every intent of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually. 6 And the Lord repented [it repented the LORD] that He had made man on the earth, and He was grieved in His heart. 7 So the Lord said, I will destroy man whom I have created from the face of the earth, both man and beast, creeping thing and birds of the air, for I repent that I have made them. 8 But Noah found grace in the eyes of the Lord. 9 This is the genealogy of Noah. Noah was a just man, perfect in his generations. Noah walked with God.

Another passage that shows God experiencing real relationship and sequentialness is Ex 32:9-14

Exodus 32:9-14 And the Lord said to Moses, I have seen this people, and indeed it is a stiff-necked people! 10 Now therefore, let Me alone, that My wrath may burn hot against them and I may consume them. And I will make of you a great nation. 11 Then Moses pleaded with the Lord his God, and said: Lord, why does Your wrath burn hot against Your people whom You have brought out of the land of Egypt with great power and with a mighty hand? 12 Why should the Egyptians speak, and say, `He brought them out to harm them, to kill them in the mountains, and to consume them from the face of the earth? Turn from Your fierce wrath, and repent from this harm to Your people. 13 Remember Abraham, Isaac, and Israel, Your servants, to whom You swore by Your own self, and said to them, I will multiply your descendants as the stars of heaven; and all this land that I have spoken of I give to your descendants, and they shall inherit it forever. 14 So the Lord repented from the harm which He said He would do to His people.

By the way RyanL. What evidence do you have that God created “time” or “sequence” or “duration”? Do you believe that this comes from Scripture somewhere or is it purely a groundless philosophical assumption?

Do you believe the Scripture I just referenced showing God responding to His creation? Or do you reject what is revealed in Genesis and Exodus and all over the Bible prefering your view that states that it is impossible for God to change or respond in any way at all?

MichaelLewis said

I’m an agnostic

Are you a true agnostic that is searching for the truth, so that you are no longer agnostic? Or a dishonest agnostic who doesn’t want to know the truth unless it is something other than Jesus Christ and Him crucified?

You said

I like to ask agent libertarians about the first decision, X, that a child is morally responsible for. Before X, by hypotheses, the child has not been responsible for anything, including who she is up to the point of making decision X. Her decision could be a product of who she is before she makes the decision (who she is as determined by some combination of her genetics, her life experiences, and perhaps her God-given soul), her external circumstances as she makes the decision, and/or some random event. In any case, I don’t see where you get libertarian free will. We aren’t self-creating, so we can’t be responsible for who we are, at least not at the point of the first choice we are morally responsible for.

Let’s test this idear. If some kid grows up with a small group of people on an island where there is no established law and his first choice of moral consequence is to rape his young neighbor, is he then not responsible for that action all because his parents did a substandard job of raising him?

 

[TheOpenTheist]

Contarini said

Quote:
Originally Posted by TheOpenTheist
The future is not a thing that exists to anyone, at least not a thing that is a fully settled reality. Even to God.

Well, so you say. How do you propose to prove this?

I just proved it by showing where God reveals in Scripture that He:

1. Regrets having made man because of the exceedignly sinful actions men committed (Gen 6:5-7). This shows that God is not happy about how things turned out early on. The Fall and the sin that followed was not a part of His plan and not necessary at all. It grieved Him to the point that He whiped out all of sinful humanity save Noah and his extended family.

and

1. Repented of destroying Israel - something He was truly going to do at one time, but did not do so (repented of doing so) because Moses pleaded with Him not to and God responded by showing mercy and being gracious to Israel. God did not have to let them all live, but did so because of the relationship He had with Moses. Those who have a good relationship with God are brought into God’s plans and their (name removed by moderator)ut is considered. Samuel also had a relationship with God like Moses did as Jeremiah 15:1,6 tells us

Jeremiah 15:1,6 Jeremiah 15:1 Then the LORD said to me, “[Even] if Moses and Samuel stood before Me, My mind [would] not [be] favorable toward this people. Cast [them] out of My sight, and let them go forth. 6 You have forsaken Me,” says the LORD, "You have gone backward. Therefore I will stretch out My hand against you and destroy you; I am weary of repenting!

you said

The consensus of Christian tradition is against you.

So what? Do you know WHY so many people thought that God was totally immutable and unable to change in any way? WHY they ignored huge changes like God’s incarnation? Its because they followed Augustine and promoted his errors which I will show soon in an upcoming post. Right now you can read all about Augustine’s commitment to pagan philosophy in this article biblicalanswers.com/predestination/Immutability%20of%20God.htm

Basicly, Augustine held to a doctrine of God that he picked up from Plato’s works and then accepted the Christian faith once Ambrose explained away the many passages that showed God responding or repenting of what He said He would do.

If as Christians have traditionally taught God exists outside time, then all times are real “things” that exist to God simultaneously.

That God is not “outside of time” is demonstrated by the many passages that show God responding and changing His mind due to new knowledge (new actualities) that He acquired. Here is another example if you need more evidence

1 Samuel 2:27-30 Then a man of God came to Eli and said to him, "Thus says the LORD: 'Did I not clearly reveal Myself to the house of your father when they were in Egypt in Pharaoh’s house? 28 'Did I not choose him out of all the tribes of Israel [to be] My priest, to offer upon My altar, to burn incense, and to wear an ephod before Me? And did I not give to the house of your father all the offerings of the children of Israel made by fire? 29 ‘Why do you kick at My sacrifice and My offering which I have commanded [in My] dwelling place, and honor your sons more than Me, to make yourselves fat with the best of all the offerings of Israel My people?’ 30 "Therefore the LORD God of Israel says: ‘I said indeed [that] your house and the house of your father would walk before Me forever.’ But now the LORD says: 'Far be it from Me; for those who honor Me I will honor, and those who despise Me shall be lightly esteemed.

Had God known at the time He exalted Eli’s house for service in the temple that his house and his sons house would not walk before Him forever, then He would have been telling a lie. God did not know at the time that Eli’s sons would dispise Him and bring about the demotion of that line. As I said before, if God knows at a point in the future that what He is saying is certainly not true, then that is a lie. The only way that God cannot be lying is for the future to not be a completely settled reality for God at that moment. The future must exist as a mix of possibilities and inevitabilities for God to be able to change His mind.

 

[TheOpenTheist]

you said

I don’t propose to prove this. But it is the classical Christian view and it is both reasonable and compatible with Scripture.

It is not reasonable or compatible and that’s WHY I am rejecting it along with Nicholas Wolterstorff, John Sanders, Greg Boyd, Bob Enyart, Terrence Fretheim and a growing host of other professors and theologians and philosophers.

you claimed

I also think it’s a bit silly to call Molinists determinists

Molinists are indeed determinists. They believe that God looked at the possible worlds He could create and that this one is “the best of all possible worlds”. John Sanders goes over Molinism in The God Who Risks. Also, you can ask William Lane Craig and Alvin Plantinga if they believe their view is deterministic if you doubt that Molinism is a form of determinism. Openness states that this is not “the best of all possible worlds” but “the world of all best possibilities”.

it’s arguable enough whether Thomists and moderate Calvinists can really be called determinists.

Calvinists, meaning people who follow the thinking and philosophy found in Calvin’s Institutes (as opposed to someone who is Calvinian which is entirely different), are determinists without any doubt. If you do not realize that then you have not read Calvin’s Institues. If they were not determinists then they would at least be Arminians or Open Theists

And according to the Thomists near my home at Notre Dame, they are determinists. If you have evidence that they are not, then share it.

you said

And what about Arminians? Open Theism isn’t traditional Arminianism either, as I’m sure you know.

It is not, but it is extremely close. The Open View has been described as Arminianism taken to its conclusions. The only real difference is that Open Theists recognize that Simple Foreknowledge is worthless. God cannot make any providentail use for it. This is because once God knows for certain that a future event or decision has been made its TOO LATE to do anything to change that event or decision from occuring. This is because the future that God knows according to Simple Foreknowledge is the actual future. Openness is different because we recognize that God knows the future as partly settled and partly unsettled or open, so that God recognizes that if specific possibilities or choices are actualized then a specific outcome or outcomes will occur. Since the future is not totally settled and subject to change, God can use His knowledge of these possibilities and probabilities and inevitabilities and interact with creation to bring about a specific outcome in a synergistic fashion as He demonstrates (with Abraham and Moses and Samuel in the Old Testament and with Paul in the New Testament for example) and tells us He does all throughout His Word (Rom 8:28; 1 Cor 3:9).

verismo said

Does this apply to your assertion?

Quote:
Matt 24:
35 Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will not pass away.
36 "But of that day and hour no one knows, not even the angels of heaven, nor the Son, but the Father only.

Yes it does! Excellent job V-man! Whatever God’s “omniscience” was like prior to the incarnation, we know from God’s Word that after the incarnation the Son did NOT know the timing of at least one future event.

The V-man said

And to me, it seem obvious that God can react in “real-time” to the choices of our free will; it can not be said that God is free to not do what He said he would, i.e. to lie.

Another great point! That is WHY the future must exist as partly unsettled or as possibilities - because if God knows with absolute certainty that what He said at a previous time about a future event is untrue then He would be lying. Since the future is partly unsettled, God can say “40 days and Nineveh will be destroyed” and then repent of detroying Nineveh in response to Nineveh’s repentance (Book of Jonah, especially Jon 3:10 and 4:2).

 

[TheOpenTheist]

Lazerlike42 asserted

I think it’s simple.

It is simple, even though you make God’s relation to His creation sound bizarre and contradictory in the rest of your post.

God is outside of time.

Evidence?

He is in eternity.

God is in eternity? That makes no sense. Eternity means forever or never-ending. Eternity is not some place where there is no time or duration or sequence in Hebrew or Greek.

He knows everything that is going to happen.

Evidence? God knows ALL POSSIBILITIES, but He definitely does not know ALL ACTUALITIES BEFOREHAND. At least, according to what God reveals about Himself in His Word.

This does not mean He can’t change anything.

Yes it does. If it is true as you assert that God knows the future as completely settled, then there is nothing for God to change or respond to or even to think about. If God has a thought that would mean He underwent a change of some sort. Thats why Plato recognized that a God such as the one you are describing is incapable of thinking at all.

It’s more like He changes things yet He knows they are changed before He does it.

That makes no sense. If God decides to change or influence something in the future then He must decide to do it first for it to occur. That is how God exercises His power as Is 46:9-12 declares

Remember the former things of old, For I [am] God, and [there is] no other; * God, and [there is] none like Me, 10 Declaring the end from the beginning, And from ancient times [things] that are not [yet] done, Saying, ‘My counsel shall stand, And I will do all My pleasure,’ 11 Calling a bird of prey from the east, The man who executes My counsel, from a far country. Indeed I have spoken [it;] I will also bring it to pass. I have purposed [it;] I will also do it.* 12 " Listen to Me, you stubborn-hearted, Who [are] far from righteousness:

you said

Take a prayer. Say I am sick and I pray for God to make me well. Is God changing what was going to happen because I prayed? In other words, was it that I was going to be sick and then I prayed and now I am going to be healed?

YES!! God shows us this in Isaiah 38:1-8 where Hezekiah is told he will die soon and then prays and God changes His mind and adds 15 years to Hezekiah’s life.

Isaiah 38:1-8 In those days Hezekiah was sick and near death. And Isaiah the prophet, the son of Amoz, went to him and said to him, "Thus says the LORD: ‘Set your house in order, for you shall die and not live.’ "

2  **Then Hezekiah** turned his face toward the wall, and **prayed to the LORD**,    3 and said, "Remember now, O LORD, I pray, how I have walked before You in truth and with a loyal heart, and have done [what is] good in Your sight." And Hezekiah wept bitterly.    4  And the word of the LORD came to Isaiah, saying,    5 "Go and tell Hezekiah, **'Thus says the LORD, the God of David your father: "I have heard your prayer, I have seen your tears; surely I will add to your days fifteen years.**    6  "I will deliver you and this city from the hand of the king of Assyria, and I will defend this city." '    7  "And this [is] the sign to you from the LORD, that the LORD will do this thing which He has spoken:    8 "Behold, I will bring the shadow on the sundial, which has gone down with the sun on the sundial of Ahaz, ten degrees backward." So the sun returned ten degrees on the dial by which it had gone down.

According to God, He told Hezekiah that he would die very soon, then Hezekiah prayed and God told Isaiah to go back and tell Hezekiah that He had heard his prayers and as a result will add 15 years to his life. Now, either you believe that or you do not believe that the Bible represents God as He truly is.

you contradicted what you said earlier in your post by saying

This is hard to get across. Umm…

Is it simple or is it hard? You say both in your response to me. Either choose, ummmm, believe in determinism as God determined you would or choose the Open View which you are free to do as a result of finding out what God is like from reading His Word

 

[The_Augustinian]

Time applies to changes in matter. God is a spirit, and thus immaterial. Therefore, God is not within time.

Look, we can bandy about these things if we like, but if we don’t accept basic logic like that, then we won’t be getting anywhere. Quoting me bible verses won’t work either, because even the devil can quote the bible, and well, even. Let me quote something to you:

In the beginning, God created the heaven and the earth.

If time existed beforehand, how could it be the beginning?

A timeless, changeless God is perhaps imcomprehensible to us, but it is philosophically and theologically correct. If God was otherwise, He could not be God. The trouble with Open Theism is that by presenting the answer to one question, it opens up a million others. It is not coherent.

 

[The_Augustinian]

Ah yes, and anyone who has a problem with the apparent contradiction between God’s foreknowledge and free will should read Boethius’ Consolation of Philosophy. Ignatius J. Reilly would be proud.