Torbeyns on Why He Became an Open Theist

From Cross Theology:

PHILOSOPHICALLY

The reason why I personally became an Open Theist was:
Imagine that God created you as the soul that would eventually become Judas Iskariot, the betrayer. And suppose He created me as the apostle Thomas, who would eventually be a great evangelist in the Far-East.
And imagine that He was completely sure that those events were going to happen. And that you would burn in Hell and I would live in Heaven.

Philosophical problems with Calvinism: Future is settled, human beings have a “free will” to choose to do only evil (= Total Depravity). Leaving one in his sins and the other not, just out of God’s supposed arbitrary choice would make Him a “respecter of persons” (Acts 10:34). God wanting that a big group should perish (2 Peter 3:9, 1 Timothy 2:4-7)

Philosophical problems with Arminianism-like future view*: God bringing those souls into exsistence of whom He knew, they would not turn from their wicked ways. “If God truly does not want anyone to be lost, then why does he create those of whom He knew they would be lost forever?” As in the above example: (the souls of) Judas and Thomas would not have been really free to choose between good and evil. They would not have received an equal chance. Calvinism would have made most sense then.

* View in which God foresaw who would eventually repent and endure and who would not. (I held to that part of the view) And that He only gave the chance to repent to those who would believe.

I did not hold to that part of the view, since, I believe, philosophically, that God needs to have given everyone an equal chance to be able to be righteous (Romans 9:14). For isn’t that required to make a righteous judgment at judgment seat and have the people honestly say: “true and righteous are His judgments” (See Revelation 19:1-2)?

Grudem on God’s Unchangableness

A Calvinist explains the importance of immutability. From Wayne Grudem’s Systematic Theology:

f. The Importance of God’s Unchangeableness: At first it may not seem very important to us to affirm God’s unchangeableness. The idea is so abstract that we may not immediately realize its significance. But if we stop for a moment to imagine what it would be like if God could change, the importance of this doctrine becomes more clear. For example, if God could change (in his being, perfections, purposes, or promises), then any change would be either for the better or for the worse. But if God changed for the better, then he was not the best possible being when we first trusted him. And how could we be sure that he is the best possible being now? But if God could change for the worse (in his very being), then what kind of God might he become? Might he become, for instance, a little bit evil rather than wholly good? And if he could become a little bit evil, then how do we know he could not change to become largely evil—or wholly evil? And there would be not one thing we could do about it, for he is so much more powerful than we are. Thus, the idea that God could change leads to the horrible possibility that thousands of years from now we might come to live forever in a universe dominated by a wholly evil, omnipotent God. It is hard to imagine any thought more terrifying. How could we ever trust such a God who could change? How could we ever commit our lives to him?

Grudem on Omnipresence

From Wayne Grudem’s Systematic Theology (1994):

Thus, we should not think of God as having size or dimensions even infinite ones (see the discussion on God’s omnipresence in the previous chapter). We should not think of God’s existence as spirit as meaning that God is infinitely large, for example, for it is not part of God but all of God that is in every point of space (see Ps. 139:7–10). Nor should we think that God’s existence as spirit means that God is infinitely small, for no place in the universe can surround him or contain him (see 1 Kings 8:27). Thus, God’s being cannot be rightly thought of in terms of space, however we may understand his existence as “spirit.”

Worship Sunday – One Thing Remains

Your love never fails
It never gives up
It never runs out on me
(x3)

Your love
Never gives up on me

And it’s higher than the mountains that I face
And it’s stronger than the power of the grave
And it’s constant in the trial and the change
This one thing remains

And it’s higher than the mountains that I face
And it’s stronger than the power of the grave
And it’s constant in the trial and the change
This one thing remains
This one thing remains

Your love never fails
It never gives up
It never runs out on me
(x3)

Your love

And on and on and on and on it goes
Yes, it overwhelms and satisfies my soul

And I never, ever, 
have to be afraid 

This one thing remains 

This one thing remains


Your love never fails
It never gives up
It never runs out on me
(x3)

Your love

In death, in life
I’m confident and covered by
The power of Your great love
My debt is paid

There’s nothing that can separate 

My heart from Your great love

Your love never fails
It never gives up
It never runs out on me
(x3)

Your love

And on and on and on and on it goes
Yes, it overwhelms and satisfies my soul

And I never, ever, 
have to be afraid 

This one thing remains 


Your love never fails
It never gives up
It never runs out on me
(x3)

Your love
It’s Your love, Your love
It’s Your love, Your love

Bitter Musician Accuses God

The lyrics of Once in a Lifetime, by Wolfsheim, reveal a deap bitterness towards God. TV Tropes claims this song is about “the loss of the singer’s wife and unborn child in a hurricane.” This would make sense and would not be outside the realm of human experience. The lyrics read:

No rain can wash away my tears
No wind can soothe my pain
You made me doubt, you made me fear
But now I’m not the same

You took my wife, my unborn son
Torn into the deep of the ocean
I don’t pretend that I love you
‘Cause there is nothing left to loose

VOTD Ezekiel 20:25-26

Eze 20:25 “Therefore I also gave them up to statutes that were not good, and judgments by which they could not live;
Eze 20:26 and I pronounced them unclean because of their ritual gifts, in that they caused all their firstborn to pass through the fire, that I might make them desolate and that they might know that I am the LORD.” ‘

Unanswered Questions – What if Omniscience Prooftexts are Right

So, let us run a thought experiment. Pretend Isaiah 40-48 means what Calvinists claim it means: that God has exhaustive knowledge of the future.

Does that mean God has always had exhaustive knowledge of the future? When compared to Genesis 6, wouldn’t the more rational position (assuming Isaiah 40-48 means God knows the future) be that God acquired at some point between Genesis 6 and Isaiah 40-48 the ability to know the future?

Apologeics Thursday – Grudem on God Knowing All Possibilities

From Wayne Grudem’s Systematic Theology:

The definition of God’s knowledge given above also specifies that God knows “all things possible.” This is because there are some instances in Scripture where God gives information about events that might happen but that do not actually come to pass. For example, when David was fleeing from Saul he rescued the city of Keilah from the Philistines and then stayed for a time at Keilah. He decided to ask God whether Saul would come to Keilah to attack him and, if Saul came, whether the men of Keilah would surrender him into Saul’s hand. David said:

“Will Saul come down, as your servant has heard? O LORD, the God of Israel, I beseech you, tell your servant.” And the LORD said, “He will come down.” Then said David, “Will the men of Keilah surrender me and my men into the hand of Saul?” And the LORD said, “They will surrender you.” Then David and his men, who were about six hundred, arose and departed from Keilah, and they went wherever they could go. When Saul was told that David had escaped from Keilah, he gave up the expedition. (1 Sam. 23:11–13)

Wayne Grudem claims that God knows all things possible. If there is an option that I can choose to eat a ham sandwich or a turkey sandwich, God then knows each of those alternatives and the butterfly effect of those independent actions. For evidence, Grudem cites an instance in the life of King David where God tells King David what would happen if King David stayed in the city of Keilah.

Whether or not God knows “all possibilities” is besides the point. The evidence given is amazingly weak. If someone told me not to do something because something would then happen, my instant reaction would be to think that they hold additional present knowledge that I do not have. Assuming that they know “all possibilities” and all future chains of events would be a terrible leap of logic. It is not a rational conclusion.

The mere fact that in a systematic theology book this evidence is one of three evidences presented to defend “God knowing all possible futures” is reason to discount the statement as having serious Biblical evidence.

The other two evidences is Jesus insulting crowds saying that Tyre and Sodom would have repented with the evidence presented to his listeners. Even if this was not a biting hyperbole meant to insult the crowd, it still does not require infinite knowledge of all possibilities. Certainly God could survey those two cities to know their general demeanor.

When taking these texts against other texts that suggest some things never entered God’s mind, we should tread lightly on the over-inflating the scope of our evidence.

VOTD Ezekiel 20:21

Eze 20:21 “Notwithstanding, the children rebelled against Me; they did not walk in My statutes, and were not careful to observe My judgments, ‘which, if a man does, he shall live by them’; but they profaned My Sabbaths. Then I said I would pour out My fury on them and fulfill My anger against them in the wilderness.

Thomas Oord is Fired from Northwest Nazarene University

In an article entitled How Do You Fire Thomas Jay Oord, the author speculates that Oord was fired from his post at Northwest Nazarene University for general disputes with the president David Alexander. In an email to Oord, Alexander listed the reason as “budget cuts”. The article wonders how budget cuts would justify firing someone bringing in more money to the university than they are being paid. If Thomas J Oord was bringing in more money than he was being paid then Alexander is indeed being disingenuous.

Worship Sunday – Power of Your Love

Lord I come to You
Let my heart be changed, renewed
Flowing from the grace
That I found in You.
And Lord I’ve come to know
The weaknesses I see in me
Will be stripped away
By the power of Your love.

Hold me close
Let Your love surround me
Bring me near
Draw me to Your side.
And as I wait
I’ll rise up like the eagle
And I will soar with You
Your Spirit leads me on
In the power of Your love.

Lord unveil my eyes
Let me see You face to face
The knowledge of Your love
As You live in me.
Lord renew my mind
As Your will unfolds in my life
In living every day
by the power of Your love.

VOTD Ezekiel 18:24

Eze 18:24 “But when a righteous man turns away from his righteousness and commits iniquity, and does according to all the abominations that the wicked man does, shall he live? All the righteousness which he has done shall not be remembered; because of the unfaithfulness of which he is guilty and the sin which he has committed, because of them he shall die.

Lifeway Removes Open Theist Authors

There is a list circulating which lists authors whom were removed from LifeWay Christian Resources’ bookshelves. Among them are popular Open Theists:

Gregory Boyd
Clark Pinnock
John Sanders

Possible Open Theist Rachel Held Evens is also on the list.

Authors not on the list and availible in their store include:

Walter Brueggemann
Thomas J Oord
Terence E. Fretheim

Questions Answered – Why Did God Make Satan

From a Facebook group, a post by Christopher Fisher:

From the OP: “Why did [God] create Satan if He knew He would turn bad?”

It seems to be standard in this thread that people’s answer is “God knew that Satan would sin, but created Him anyway to show something rather than not create Satan along with all the evil Satan would do.”

But that is not the Biblical narrative. When God sees creatures turn out evil, He regrets making them, He is perplexed, His attempts to correct fail:

Gen 6:6 And the LORD regretted that he had made man on the earth, and it grieved him to his heart.
Gen 6:7 So the LORD said, “I will blot out man whom I have created from the face of the land, man and animals and creeping things and birds of the heavens, for I am sorry that I have made them.”

Jdg 2:20 Then the anger of the LORD was hot against Israel; and He said, “Because this nation has transgressed My covenant which I commanded their fathers, and has not heeded My voice,
Jdg 2:21 I also will no longer drive out before them any of the nations which Joshua left when he died,
Jdg 2:22 so that through them I may test Israel, whether they will keep the ways of the LORD, to walk in them as their fathers kept them, or not.”

Zep 3:7 I said, ‘Surely you will fear Me, You will receive instruction’— So that her dwelling would not be cut off, Despite everything for which I punished her. But they rose early and corrupted all their deeds.

1Sa 2:30 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.

Jer 2:30 In vain have I smitten your children; they received no correction: your own sword hath devoured your prophets, like a destroying lion.

Maybe the answer to Elaine’s question is that God didn’t expect Satan to turn out bad.

Apologetics Thursday – Boyd Discusses Inerrancy

From reknew.org:

Does the Open View Undermine Inerrancy?
Ware is convinced that the open view of the future “makes it impossible to affirm Scripture’s inerrancy unequivocally…” This is an important point since the move to exclude open theists from the Evangelical Theological Society was originally rooted in the claim that our position is inconsistent with the Society’s affirmation of faith in biblical inerrancy. The basis for Ware’s allegation is that open theists cannot affirm the truth of “inviolable divine predictions that involve future free human decisions and actions….” Two things may be said in response.

First, since God has revealed that he reserves the right to alter his plans, even after he’s decreed them (Jer. 18:6–10), and since Scripture offers us numerous illustrations of God doing just this, even after he’s made what seemed to be “inviolable” pronouncements, one wonders how Ware acquired the inerrant insight into what exactly is and is not an “inviolable” prophecy. I say his insight must be “inerrant,” for unless it is so, Ware is not in a position to denounce open theists for denying inerrancy on the grounds that we deny the inviolability of a decree Ware decrees is inviolable.

Second, since open theists hold that God is able to unilaterally settle as much of the future ahead of time as he desires, there is nothing in principle preventing us from affirming any specific decree of God, even if we were to agree that the decree is inviolable. For example, most open theists agree with those New Testament scholars who argue that many, if not most, of the specific “fulfillments” cited in the New Testament are illustrative in nature, not predictive. But even if were inclined to accept that the Old Testament predicted (say) that Jesus’ clothes had to be divided, that Jesus had to be betrayed, and that Jesus had to be given vinegar for water (but not poison for food, as the first half of the sentence in Ps. 69:21 “predicts”?), there’s absolutely nothing in our position that would prevent us from doing so. Nor is there any reason why God couldn’t decree ahead of time that a certain man would have a certain name and carry out a certain deed (as with Josiah and Cyrus). Our view simply holds that God leaves open whatever aspects of the future he sovereignly chooses to leave open. Hence, the argument that open theism somehow undermines inerrancy is without merit.

Piper Suggests Books

John Piper, a Calvinist, posts some book recommendations:

Systematic Theology

Systematic Theology (Grudem)
A New Systematic Theology of the Christian Faith (Reymond)
Systematic Theology (Berkhof)

The Attributes of God

The Doctrine of God (Bavinck)
Difficult Doctrine of the Love of God (Carson)
The Existence and Attributes of God (Charnock)
God the Father Almighty (Erickson)
Knowing God (Packer)
The Holiness of God (Sproul)
The Pleasures of God (Piper)
The Doctrine of God (Frame)
The Attributes of God (Pink)

Grudem on God

A Calvinist defines God. From Wayne Grudem’s Systematic Theology:

1. There is but one only, living, and true God, who is infinite in being and
perfection, a most pure spirit, invisible, without body, parts, or passions; immutable,
immense, eternal, incomprehensible, almighty, most wise, most holy, most free, most
absolute; working all things according to the counsel of his own immutable and most
righteous will, for his own glory; most loving, gracious, merciful, long-suffering,
abundant in goodness and truth, forgiving iniquity, transgression, and sin; the
rewarder of them that diligently seek him; and withal, most just, and terrible in his
judgments, hating all sin, and who will by no means clear the guilty.

Worship Sunday – I Believe In Jesus

I believe in Jesus
I believe He is the Son of God
I believe He died and rose again
I believe He paid for us all

And I believe He is here now
Standing in our midst
Here With the power to heal now
And the grace to forgive

I believe in You, Lord
I believe You are the Son of God
I believe You died and rose again
I believe You paid for us all.

And I believe You’re here now
Standing in our midst
Here With the power to heal now
And the grace to forgive

Augustine Praises the Platonists

From a Letter from Augustine to Dioscorus:

33. The Platonists, however, who, amidst the errors of false philosophies assailing them at that time on all sides, rather concealed their own doctrine to be searched for than brought it into the light to be vilified, as they had no divine personage to command faith, began to exhibit and unfold the doctrines of Plato after the name of Christ had become widely known to the wondering and troubled kingdoms of this world. Then flourished at Rome the school of Plotinus, which had as scholars many men of great acuteness and ability. But some of them were corrupted by curious inquiries into magic, and others, recognising in the Lord Jesus Christ the impersonation of that essential and immutable Truth and Wisdom which they were endeavouring to reach, passed into His service. Thus the whole supremacy of authority and light of reason for regenerating and reforming the human race has been made to reside in the one saving Name, and in His one Church.

Questions Answered – What Denominations Accept Open Theism

From Facebook group Open Theists:

David asks:

What denominations are accepting of Open Theists? Is there a list someone could direct me towards? Almighty google has disappointed me thus far.

The running list:

(1) Assemblies of God
(2) Nazarenes
(3) Mennonites
(4) Free Will Baptists
(5) Salvation Army
(6) Anglicans
(7) Quakers
(8) Grace Believers
(9) Some baptists
(10) Some independents
(11) United Methodist Church
(12) United Church of Christ
(13) Free Methodists
(14) Church of God
(15) Evangelical Covenant Church

Apologetics Thursday – Boyd Examines the Biblical Case for God’s Repentance

From reknew.org:

Does God Make Mistakes?

Ware alleges that because of God’s “expansive ignorance” and “innumerable mistaken beliefs” about the future, the God of open theism makes many mistakes he later regrets. Two points should be made.

First, Ware’s issue is with Scripture before it is with open theists, for like or not, the Bible depicts God as regretting the outcome of previous decisions he made (Gen. 6:6–7; 1 Sam. 15:11, 35). Ware wants to reduce all such language to anthropomorphisms (revealing what?), for it doesn’t square with his presupposition about what the wisdom of God must be like. But, aside from the fact that there’s nothing in the narrative of the text to suggest this language is anthropomorphic, a more humble approach might be to entertain the possibility that our presuppositions about what God’s wisdom must be like might be wrong and to allow the face value meaning of the biblical text to teach us something we perhaps didn’t expect. What if God really could be just like the author of Genesis and 1 Samuel suggest? What if God really could regret previous decisions?

Second, it is not difficult to imaginatively conceive of how God could regret previous decisions without implying that he previously made a wrong decision. The wisest decision can go awry if other agents make poor choices, and this doesn’t diminish the wisdom of the decision. An executive who chooses an accountant with a stellar record over an accountant with a poor record to watch over her most important account might regret her decision if her exemplar accountant chooses, quite out of character, to act irresponsibly. But this doesn’t mean her choice at the time was a bad one. It was the best one—but agents are free.

To turn the tables once again, if open theists face any difficulty over how God can regret wise decisions because agents are free, it seems less than what Ware must face in explaining how God can regret decisions which turned out exactly as he predestined them to turn out. If the executive came to regret placing her top accountant in charge of the account, yet foreknew (or predestined) that he would botch the job, we would not be inclined to judge her as supremely wise.

On this matter, Ware chides me for my advice to Suzanne, a woman who had abandoned the faith for a time because God told her to marry a man that turned out to be unfaithful and abusive. (4) The painful marriage ended in a divorce. Assuming that God foreknew what her husband would do, she concluded that God (if he existed) answered her lifelong prayer for a godly husband in a cruel fashion. In her words, “He set me up for a nightmare.”

Appealing to 1 Samuel 15:11 and 35, I counseled Suzanne that God didn’t set her up for the nightmare she endured. Rather, God’s guidance was the best guidance at the time she was considering marrying this man. But the man she married was a free moral agent who unfortunately chose to follow a path of sin. I encouraged her to see God as now grieving with her over how things turned out. The advice worked in bringing Suzanne back into the Christian faith.

Against this advice, however, Ware asks, “What assurances can [Suzanne] be given that God will do any better in his future leading than he has in the past?” My answer is that, where free agents are involved, there is no infallible guarantee that marriages will turn out as we hoped—and all of us, including Ware, already know this. But in the open view, when things go bad it is not about how good or bad God’s leading is. It’s about how good or bad people choose to be. This cannot be said of Ware’s own position, however. In his theology, it is always about God. So Ware needs to ask himself the question he asked me: What assurance can he give to Suzanne that God’s leading would bring better results in the future than it has in the past? And remember, it was Ware’s theology that brought Suzanne to despair and disbelief in the first place!

Nebridius Praises Augustine for Teaching Platonism

In a letter to Augustine, Nebridius praises Augustine for teaching Platonism:

To Augustine Nebridius Sends Greeting.

1. Your letters I have great pleasure in keeping as carefully as my own eyes. For they are great, not indeed in length, but in the greatness of the subjects discussed in them, and in the great ability with which the truth in regard to these subjects is demonstrated. They shall bring to my ear the voice of Christ, and the teaching of Plato and of Plotinus.

Jones on Hardened Hearts

A former Calvinist wonders why God only hardens some hearts:

The Hardened Heart

Total Inability also seems to oppose the Bible teaching concerning hardness of heart. The Scriptures warn us that those who repeatedly trifle with sin may sear their consciences (1 Tim. 4:2), render themselves “past feeling” (Eph. 4:19) and enter into a hardening of the heart toward God and His truth. This is not a condition of birth, but seems to be a consequence of repeated sin.

Isaiah speaks of this condition: “Why, O Lord, do you make us wander from your ways and harden our hearts so we do not revere you?” (Isa. 63:17) The hardening of the heart which precludes reverence of God is here described as a condition that has come upon these people, probably as a judgment for rebellion. But Calvinists tell us that this condition – an invincible anti-God bent – is the birth-condition of all human beings.

In Romans 1, Paul writes of men who are “without excuse” because of the manifest presence of God in the creation. He says, “For although they knew God, they neither glorified him as God nor gave thanks to him, but their thinking became futile and their foolish hearts were darkened” (Rom. 1:21). Here we see men who became futile in their thinking and were given over to a darkened state of the heart. The apostle is not speaking of a condition of birth, but a judgment that came upon them because of willful refusal to acknowledge the Creator.

The Calvinist is hard-pressed to show how this judgment condition of darkness differs from their notions of Total Inability – a state they deem universal. Their doctrine states that everyone is born hardened toward God, unable to believe or take the slightest step toward Him. But if this is true, why do the Scriptures seem to say this only about some people?

Again, Zechariah says of rebellious Zion, “They made their hearts as hard as flint and would not listen to the law or to the words that the Lord Almighty has sent by his Spirit through the earlier prophets” (Zech. 7:12). Here, people made themselves insensible to the truth of God, indicating that they were not in this condition from the womb.

There is no denying that all people are born with sinful tendencies and are apt to go astray. This can be established by Scripture and experience. But it is one thing to say that all men have such tendencies and quite another that they are unable to respond to God. General human sinfulness differs from Total Inability. To prove the first is not necessarily to prove the second.

Worship Sunday – Holy Isaiah 6 Amazing Grace

Holy, holy, holy
Is the Lord God almighty and
The whole earth is full of His glory
Hallelujah, hallelujah
Hallelujah, hallelujah
Amazing grace, how sweet the sound
That saved a wretch like me
I once was lost but now am found
Was blind but now I see
When we’ve been there ten thousand years
Bright shining as the sun
We’ve no less days to sing God’s praise
Than when we’d first begun

Jones on Total Depravity

A former Calvinist examines Total Depravity:

The Genesis Account

This loss of ability to receive spiritual truth is one of the consequences of Original Sin, we are told. If this is true, we would surely expect to find some mention of it in the Genesis account. Yet there is no record there of God imposing this curse of Total Inability on man’s nature. There are other curses listed. God pronounced the death sentence, which He defined as a return to the dust (Gen. 3:19). Such language obviously denotes a physical death, not a loss of spiritual ability or a death to God.

God decreed the presence of “thorns and thistles” to make toil more difficult (v.18). He told the woman that she must endure great pain in childbearing (v.16). Both of these curses are trivial compared to what would be the most debilitating curse of all: the removal of all ability to respond to God. Of this we haven’t the slightest mention. George Burnap comments:

“If this doctrine is true, God did not tell man the true penalty, neither the truth, nor the whole truth, nor a hundredth part of the truth. To have told the whole truth, according to this hypothesis, He should have said, ‘Because ye have done this, cursed be that moral nature which I have given you. Henceforth such is the change I make in your natures: that ye shall be, and your offspring, infinitely odious and hateful in my sight. The moment their souls shall go forth from my hand…if they are suffered to live, such shall be the diseased constitution of their moral natures: that they shall have no freedom to do one single good action, but everything they do shall be sin….What an awful blot would such a curse be on the first pages of Scripture!”6

It is true that death passed upon all men through the First Adam. His expulsion from the Garden with its Tree of Life removed him from the source of immortality and made death certain. This is also true of his posterity. But the transmission of Total Inability toward God is nowhere conveyed in the text.

Two primary texts adduced to prove the doctrine of Original Sin (Rom. 5; 1 Cor. 15) say nothing about Total Inability. Nowhere are we told that an invincible tendency to resist God was imparted to the race through the offense of one. If there were a place we would expect to find the doctrine, it would be in one of those passages dealing with the relationship between Adam and his descendants. But there is not a trace of such teaching there.

Unanswered Questions – Was God Thwarted by Ahab?

To those who believe God controls all things, did ever God appoint someone for destruction and that appointment was thwarted?

1Ki 20:42 Then he said to him, “Thus says the LORD: ‘Because you have let slip out of your hand a man whom I appointed to utter destruction, therefore your life shall go for his life, and your people for his people.’ ”

Apologetics Thursday – Boyd Explains That God Does Not Hold False Beliefs

From reknew.org:

Does God Hold False Beliefs?
I turn now to seven specific charges that Ware brings against the open view.

Ware alleges that in the open view, “God must…possess innumerable false beliefs about what will happen in the future.” In my opinion, the claim is quite unfounded. It is of course true that Scripture reports Yahweh as revealing that at times he “thought” or “expected” something would occur which didn’t come to pass (e.g. Jer. 3:7–8, 19–20; Isa. 5:1–5; Ezek. 12:2). And it’s true that open theists find no compelling reason to not take this language at face value. But only a most unsympathetic reading of Jeremiah’s and Isaiah’s language—and of the open theists who simply repeat it—would conclude that this language entails that God holds false beliefs.

A more sympathetic explanation is readily available. When God says he “thought” or “expected” something would take place that didn’t take place, he is simply reflecting his perfect knowledge of probabilities. When the improbable happens, as sometimes is the case with free agents, God says he genuinely “thought” or “expected” the more probable outcome would happen. Because God is infinitely intelligent, we cannot conceive of God being altogether shocked, as though he didn’t perfectly anticipate and prepare for this very improbability (as much as if it was a certainty from all eternity). But relative to the probabilities of the situation, the outcome was surprising [viz. improbable].

Jeremiah and Isaiah (and open theists who repeat their language) can only be accused of ascribing false beliefs to God if they claim that God was mistakenly certain something would occur which did not occur. But no biblical author, or open theist, has ever said this.

To turn the tables for a moment, if I may, the question Ware must answer regarding such passages is this: Why does God reveal that he “thought” or “expected” something was going to occur which in fact did not occur if he knew from all eternity (or predestined from all eternity) that it would not occur? If one insists that open theists have difficulties in taking passages like Jeremiah 3, Isaiah 5 and Ezekiel 12 at face value, must we not concede that those who anthropomorphize these passages because they do not square with the doctrine of exhaustively definite foreknowledge face difficulties at least as serious as these?

Morrell on Psalms 139

From BiblicalTruthResources:

First of all, God knows the words we are going to speak before we speak them because He knows our hearts and minds. Jesus knew what was in their hearts even before they spoke at all. That part of the verse does not mean that God foreknows from eternity all of the future as an absolute certainty.

Second of all, all the days ordained does not mean what occurs within those days but the number of those days. And the fact remains, God can shorten the days of the wicked as proverbs says and God can also add days to your life like He did with Hezekieh. So the future is open as God is able to change it by adding or subtracting the days of your life.

Ezekiel 16

Triablogue wonders why Open Theists do not use Ezekiel 16 to show Open Theism:

However, the question at issue isn’t how I interpret Ezk 16, but how we’d expect open theism to handle this passage, if its proponents were consistent. Given their hermeneutical presuppositions, it’s hard to see how open theists can effectively resist the feministic interpretation. Ezk 23 presents the same dilemma.

vi) Given open theist hermeneutics, the God who emerges from Ezk 16 is a terrifying God. And terrifying in a particular respect: he lacks emotional self-control. He loses his cool, lashing out in fury. A God with a short fuse.

It’s like a Mafia Don who adopts the daughter of his late brother. He raises her with great affection and kindness. But if his ward betrays his love, his love turns to hate. He becomes vindictive. He’s wonderful to you as long as you don’t cross him. But if you get on his wrong side, if he feels betrayed, then you will find yourself on the receiving end of omnipotent revenge.

It’s like a throwback to Greek mythology. Think of the ingenious punishments which the Greek gods devise for those who fall out of favor.

Worship Sunday – Come Now Our King

By Chris August

Bethlehem turns in tonight
A town lit up by candle light
All the children tucked in tight
Bethlehem turns in tonight

The angels start their whispering
About the one they’re welcoming
No one knows what’s soon to be
As the angels start their whispering

They sing glory
In the highest
Come now our King
We’ve been
Waiting
Come now our King

Silence falls
Yet once again
The shepherds leave for Bethlehem
Baby’s cry soon welcomes them
Silence falls yet once again

They sing glory ( glory in the.. 2x )
In the highest
Come now our King, yeahiii
We’ve been ( we’ve been waiting 2x )
Waiting
Come now our King

Ooooh

Glory, Oh glory
You came here to save
Ooh Lord, we’ve been waiting so
Come now our King

Now my night has turned to day
An empty manger, empty grave
Baby born so I could say
Now my night has turned to day

Ooh, We sing glory ( glory in the.. 2x )
In the highest
Come now our King, oh ooh
We’ve been ( we’ve been waiting 2x )
Waiting ( waiting for you 2x )
Come now our king
Ooh ooh, Come now our King.

Boyd on Fatalism

From reknew.org:

This belief in fate or divine determinism is as tragic as it is unbiblical. Among other things, fatalism inevitably leads people to blame God for evil. If God is the ultimate cause of everything, how could this conclusion be avoided? Moreover, by undermining our freedom of choice, determinism strips us of our dignity and moral responsibility. It reduces us to pawns of fate and robs us of our potential to love. In other words, it destroys the beauty of the biblical proclamation that we are made in the image of God.

While it’s undeniable that the Bible depicts God as predestining some things, it’s also clear that free decisions do not fall into this category. To a significant extent, humans freely determine their own destiny. And the first step in understanding how an all-good God could create a world that is as messed up as the one we find ourselves in is to fully appreciate this fact.

Unanswered Questions – What About Dahmer?

Asked in Christians AGAINST the Heresy of Calvinism & TULIP:

Calvinists,
When a mentally ill person develops suicidal thoughts, is that God’s intention? I mean is it what He truthfully desires?
When Jeffrey Dahmer drugged young boys and not only molested them but actually ate their flesh and experimented with their unconscious bodies, was that God’s will?
Does God really go to these lengths in order to glorify His name? Is this the same God who said that He WEPT over the Moabites when He had to punish them?
Calvinism celebrates God’s power and sovereignty, but they put His love and holiness on the backburner.

VOTD Revelation 21:3-4

Rev 21:3 And I heard a loud voice from heaven saying, “Behold, the tabernacle of God is with men, and He will dwell with them, and they shall be His people. God Himself will be with them and be their God.
Rev 21:4 And God will wipe away every tear from their eyes; there shall be no more death, nor sorrow, nor crying. There shall be no more pain, for the former things have passed away.”

Apologetics Thursday – Boyd Responds to Ware

From reknew.org:

Breaking Fellowship on the Basis of Perceived Implications?

Ware argues that open theists should be excluded from the Evangelical Theological Society on the grounds that their view has “seriously unacceptable theological and practical implications.” Among other things, Ware believes open theism implies that God can’t do what the Bible says God does, that God holds false beliefs and possesses imperfect wisdom, that God can’t be trusted to guide believers, and that the Bible is not inerrant. Of course, open theists within the Evangelical Theological Society have responded to these sorts of charges numerous times before in writing—though, unfortunately, one would never surmise this from Ware’s essay.

Two things need to be said about this. First, Ware may not find our responses convincing, but it would be nice—to say nothing of displaying more academic integrity—if he would have interacted somewhat with our responses rather than proceeding as though we have no response. One almost gets the impression from Ware’s essay that he’s catching open theists totally off guard with new criticisms.

Second, one must be very careful about dismissing a position—to say nothing of breaking fellowship with a group of believers—on the basis of the implications they think follow from that position. After all, to many Arminians and open theists, the Calvinism Ware defends seems to deny the glory of God, the universal love of God, the wisdom of God, the urgency of prayer, the genuineness of God’s interactions with us, human moral responsibility, the need for missions, and many other things. Yet, since Calvinists themselves don’t deny these things, they are accepted as sisters and brothers in Christ. Arminians and open theists may judge them to be (fortunately) logically inconsistent, but we shouldn’t ascribe to them conclusions which we think follow from their position but which they themselves deny.

Open theists would simply like this Christian and academic courtesy to be extended to us. Ware obviously can’t understand how we avoid the implications he ascribes to us. Fine, perhaps we are simply logical nincompoops. Or perhaps (as I believe), Ware has difficulty getting inside of a system of thought that is radically different from his own. But in either case, it seems misguided and unchristian to move to brand a position as “non-evangelical” because some can’t understand how they avoid certain negative implications they think their theology implies. Our explicit confessions of faith, not what others think logically follows from our confessions of faith, should be the basis of our fellowship.

Piper’s Prooftexts

John Piper, a Calvinist, offers prooftexts to show that man does not thwart God’s will:

Genesis 50:20: Joseph says to his brothers who had sold him into slavery, “As for you, you meant evil against me, but God meant it for good in order to bring about this present result, to preserve many people alive.”

Deuteronomy 29:2-4: Moses says to the Israelites before they enter the promised land, “You have seen all that the Lord did before your eyes . . . those great signs and wonders. Yet to this day the Lord has not given you a heart to know, nor eyes to see, nor ears to hear.” (cf. Romans 11:32; Deuteronomy 5:29).

Proverbs 16:4: “The Lord has made everything for its own purpose, even the wicked for the day of evil.” (cf. 1 Peter 2:8; Jude 4; Romans 9:22)

Proverbs 16:9: “The mind of man plans his way, but the Lord directs his steps.”

Proverbs 16:33: “The lot is cast in the lap, but every decision is from the Lord.”

Proverbs 19:21: “Many are the plans of a man’s heart but the counsel of the Lord, it will stand.”

Proverbs 21:1: “The King’s heart is like channels of water in the hand of the Lord; he turns it wherever he wishes.”

Isaiah 63:17: “Why, O Lord, dost thou cause us to stray from thy ways, and harden our heart from fearing thee? Return for the sake of thy servants, the tribes of thy heritage.”

Jeremiah 10:23: “I know, O Lord, that a man’s way is not in himself; Nor is it in a man who walks to direct his steps.”

Jeremiah 32:40: In the promise of the new covenant God says, “I will put the fear of me in their hearts so that they will not turn away from me” (cf. Ezekiel 36:27; Jeremiah 52:1-3).

Lamentations 3:37f: “Who is there who speaks and it comes to pass, unless the Lord has commanded it? Is it not from the mouth of the Most High that both good and ill go forth?” (cf. Isaiah 45:7; Amos 3:6).

Philippians 2:12, 13: “Work out your salvation with fear and trembling; for it is God who is at work in you both to will and to work for his good pleasure.”

2 Timothy 2:24-26: “The Lord’s bond-servant must not be quarrelsome but . . . able to teach . . . with gentleness correcting those who are in opposition, if perhaps God may grant them repentance leading to a knowledge of the truth, and they may come to their senses and escape from the snare of the devil, having been held captive by him to do his will.”

Hebrews 13:20, 21: “Now the God of peace . . . equip you in every good thing to do his will, working in us that which is pleasing in his sight through Jesus Christ, to whom be the glory for ever and ever. Amen.

Revelation 17:17: Of the ten kings who wage war against the harlot (Babylon) it is said, “They will hate the harlot and will make her desolate and naked, and will eat her flesh and will burn her up with fire. For God has put it in their hearts to execute his purpose . . .”

88 Reasons Why the Rapture Will Happen in 1988

A nostalgic reminder to be careful in extrapolating from the Bible things not explicit in the Bible:

Worship Sunday – Who is Like Our God

By Laura Story

Where can I run in times of trouble
Where can I turn when hope seems lost
I find my strength within Your shelter
You will not fail though the night is long

Who is like our God
Mighty in the battle
Your Majesty be lifted high
Who is like our God
He reaches for the broken
Jesus hears me when I cry

How can it be that You are for me
Though I am weak, Your love is strong
You are my light and my salvation
In Your name alone, I overcome

Who is like our God
Mighty in the battle
Your Majesty be lifted high
Who is like our God
He reaches for the broken
Jesus hears me when I cry

Who else can help us
Who else can save
Who else can overcome the power of the grave
Who else can heal us
Break every chain
There is no one, no one else
There is no one, no one else

Who is like our God
Mighty in the battle
Your Majesty be lifted high
Who is like our God
He reaches for the broken
Jesus hears my cry

Who is like our God
Mighty in the battle
Your Majesty be lifted high
Who is like our God
He reaches for the broken
Jesus hears me when I cry
He hears me when I cry
He hears me when I cry
Who is like, who is like our God.

Mohler on Open Theism

Albert Mohler is not impressed with Open Theism. He gives a brief overview of it and uses disparaging language against Boyd’s advice to a young lady:

Boyd writes as a pastor, and his illustrations reveal the emptiness and danger of his proposal. He tells of Suzanne, a woman committed to missions in Taiwan, who felt God was leading her to marry a fine young man following the same call. Later, the man turned out to be an abusive adulterer who abandoned her, extinguishing her ministry to Taiwan. How can this be explained? Boyd told the woman that God was surprised and grieved by how this young man turned out.

This is God cut down to size—a God who is well intended, but does not micromanage. He is ready with Plan B when Plan A fails. But, in the end, Boyd believes that God sometimes gives bad advice. Contrast that with the confession of Job: “I know that You can do all things, and that no purpose of Yours can be thwarted.” The God of the Bible needs no Plan B.

Answered Questions – Most Common Misperception of Open Theism

From a Reddit Question and Answer with Greg Boyd:

What’s the most common misperception people have of open theism? How do you address that?

Boyd responds:

LOVE that you asked this! The most common misperception of the Open Theism, at least as I espouse it, is that it is about the scope of God’s knowledge rather than the nature of the future. Its reflected in the many critics who claim Open Theists “deny omniscience.” The truth is that we all affirm God is omniscient. The issues isn’t how much God knows, but what is the nature of the reality that God knows. And the only distinctive claim of Open Theists is that the reality God exhaustively knows INCLUDES POSSIBILITIES. Precisely because God is omniscient, who knows things exactly as they are. So he knows possibilities AS POSSIBILITIES, and actualities as actualities.

Apologetics Thursday – Restraint of Free Will

Reposted from realityisnotoptional.com:

From the Contemporary Calvinist:

I find it strange that Arminians [substitute Open Theists] always focus on whether or not God actively causes men to sin. Why don’t they ever seem to be just as concerned about whether or not God actively restrains men from sinning? Wouldn’t that also be a violation of free will?

Calvinists seem to try to make this point often. If Pharaoh’s army is crossing the Red Sea and God impedes them by crashing the waves upon them from all sides, this is claimed as a “violation of free will”. Because God is killing people, he is not letting them use their “free will” to cross the Red Sea.

Contrary to what the Calvinists claim, that is absolutely not a violation of free will; free will involves overriding someone’s internal will in order to override their internal thinking. Free will is not about physical or mental constraints imposed by reality. Just because gravity exists, does not mean my “free will” to want to be weightless is overridden. My “will” to be weightless exists whether or not I can make it a reality.

To illustrate: My children have free will. They chose whether to fight amongst each other or play nicely. But when they do choose to fight, I may step in and resolve the matter. When faced with possible consequences and barriers to fighting, my children decide whether to try to defy me or back down. Defying me can be in a mental or physical aspect. Because I am about 8 times their weight, physical resistance usually is not a good choice (another plus: I never lose a “tickle” fight). Mental defiance in my children, I cannot control.

While I can never flip a switch to make my children obedient, I can help guide their mentality towards obedience. I might “break” them, as we commonly use the term. “Breaking” them involves changing their mind due to external stimulus. Only when I am able to convince them that they need to change will they actually change. I can do nothing except guide, lead, and convince.

God does this too. King Nebuchadnezzar was a great and mighty king. Daniel 4 describes an instance in which God wants to humble King Nebuchadnezzar:

Dan 4:24 this is the interpretation, O king, and this is the decree of the Most High, which has come upon my lord the king:
Dan 4:25 They shall drive you from men, your dwelling shall be with the beasts of the field, and they shall make you eat grass like oxen. They shall wet you with the dew of heaven, and seven times shall pass over you, till you know that the Most High rules in the kingdom of men, and gives it to whomever He chooses.
Dan 4:26 “And inasmuch as they gave the command to leave the stump and roots of the tree, your kingdom shall be assured to you, after you come to know that Heaven rules.

God cannot just override Nebuchadnezzar’s will. It would be infinitely easier for God to just “enforce” His will by overriding human will. God need not “flood the Egyptians” (Exo 14), “make Zacharias mute” (Luk 1), or “send lying spirits to convince false prophets” (1Ki 22). If God overrode wills, God could just “make the Egyptians decide to turn around”, “make Zacharias name his son John”, and “make Ahab decide to go to battle”. But the Bible does not describe this. God instead uses his resources to physically and mentally stop and manipulate people. God plagues Nebuchadnezzar both physically and mentally, turns him into a psychotic beast, in order to make him humble. This works, and Nebuchadnezzar is much more humble than before the humiliation.

This is in contrast to a robot. A robot has no free will. It is every programmer’s dream to even simulate free will. A robot cannot truly choose to perform an action. Instead, every decision is determined by coding. Even computer generated “random” number are not truly random numbers, but instead determined by complex formulas. Computers, even if not physically or mentally restrained, do not have free will.

Free will is not constrained by physical and mental impediments. Free will is our internal decisions, apart from physical and mental capabilities or limitations. When Calvinists see God killing someone as “limiting that person’s will” we should correct them. God impedes individuals, but nowhere in the Bible “limits their will”.

VOTD Revelation 14:9-10

Rev 14:9 Then a third angel followed them, saying with a loud voice, “If anyone worships the beast and his image, and receives his mark on his forehead or on his hand,
Rev 14:10 he himself shall also drink of the wine of the wrath of God, which is poured out full strength into the cup of His indignation. He shall be tormented with fire and brimstone in the presence of the holy angels and in the presence of the Lamb.

Piper on God’s Two Wills

Piper, a Calvinist, discusses God’s two wills in his review of God’s Strategy in Human History:

D. F&M cite many texts in which “not all men do God’s will” (31.4). They conclude from these verses (e.g. Luke 7:30; Matthew 23:37; 12:50; 7:21; John 7:17; 1 John 2:17; 1 Thessalonians 4:3, 5:17-19; Acts 7:51) that a man can thwart the will of God for him. If Jesus says that only those who do the will of his Father in heaven will enter into the Kingdom then there are many who do not do the will of God. F&M conclude: “Nothing in Scripture suggests that there is some kind of will or plan of God which is inviolable” (32.3, see “E” below for Scriptures which do indeed suggest this!). They reject any attempt to distinguish between two ways that the will or counsel of God is conceived (32.33). But in doing this they reject a theological construction which in my opinion handles the data of Scripture more coherently than the theological construction of free will and the thwartable God.

A careful reflection upon the Scriptures compels us to distinguish between different senses in which the will of God is spoken of. Calvin uses the terms “signified will” and “effectual will” (32). Jonathan Edwards refers to God’s “secret will” and his “revealed will” or, which is perhaps most apt, God’s “will of decree” and his “will of command.” The stumbling block for the Arminians has always been that Calvinists assert that God can command one thing and decree that another thing come to pass; he can say that one thing is his will and yet foreordain a contrary thing. But is this not in fact so?

Let’s take the example of Pharaoh’s hardening of heart. It is irrelevant for the present point whether F&M are right to translate “harden” as “strengthen.” What is important is simply this: to F&M after the fifth plague God gave Pharaoh “supernatural strength to continue with his evil path of rebellion” (73.9). In other words, it was God’s will that for five more plagues Pharaoh not let the people of Israel go. Nevertheless even after God had willed not to let Israel go for five more plagues, “The Lord said to Moses ‘Go to Pharaoh and say to him, “Thus says the Lord, Let my people go!””‘ (Exodus 8:1). Here is a clear example of where God’s “will of decree” and “will of command” have to be distinguished.

Piper Reviews God’s Strategy in Human History

Piper gives a brief overview of the Open Theist friendly book, God’s Strategy in Human History:

Now we have arrived at the root of F&M’s book. Now we can say what generated these 296 pages. I think God’s Strategy in Human History was written to prove this one sentence: “Human beings, of course, could not thwart God’s ultimate plan for the world, but they both can and do thwart his plan that they, as individuals, should have a part in it” (27.8, 30.4). To put it another way, “God ordains that the new heaven and new earth will come. He does not ordain which particular individuals will accept his plan for them to have a part in it” (28.2).

Free Monday – The Omniscience of God and Open Theism

Evangelical Arminians is hosting a paper by Ron Callaway entitled The Omniscience of God and Open Theism. This is a work against Open Theism. An excerpt:

Genesis 22:1-15
Genesis 22 is the well-known and beloved story of Abraham’s willingness
to sacrifice his son Isaac in order to obey the command of God.
The first verse of the passage tells us that God was “testing” (“tempt”
KJV) Abraham. In verse 12, the Angel of Yahweh tells Abraham not to
harm the boy, “for now I know that thou fearest God.”
Open theism, against classical Christian belief, says that the purpose
for the test was for God to “know” or to find out if Abraham really did
fear him. While Abraham probably benefited from the experience, God
needed to know whether Abraham really feared him. He apparently
thought that he did, but he needed to be sure. “If one presupposes that
God already ‘knew’ the results of the test beforehand, then the text is at
least worded poorly and at most simply false.”44
Classical Christianity has understood the use of “now I know,” spoken
by God in this passage, to be an anthropomorphic manner of God’s
expressing what he already knew concerning Abraham’s faith. Rather
than being a test for the Lord, it was Abraham himself who was “justified
by his works, when he had offered Isaac his son upon the altar” (James
2:21; cf. Hebrews 11:17; Genesis 22:5).
Open theists claim that they are the ones who are reading the text
correctly by denying that this is an anthropomorphism. God needed to
know, so he put Abraham to a genuine test. But the classical theologian
asks, “Then what about Genesis 3:9-13 in which God asks Adam a series
of questions? Was God also looking for information in this case as well?”

Worship Sunday – Heart of Worship

Lyrics:

When the music fades
All is stripped away
And I simply come
Longing just to bring
Something that’s of worth
That will bless your heart

I’ll bring you more than a song
For a song in itself
Is not what you have required
You search much deeper within
Through the way things appear
You’re looking into my heart

I’m coming back to the heart of worship
And it’s all about you
It’s all about you, Jesus
I’m sorry Lord for the things I’ve made it
When it’s all about you
It’s all about you, Jesus

King of endless worth
No one could express
How much you deserve
Though I’m weak and poor
All I have is yours
Every single breath

Green on Calvinist Justification of Slavery

From CHRISTIANITY’S BLOODY WHITE REFORMED LEGACY: MY THOUGHTS ON PRESIDENT OBAMA’S 2015 NATIONAL PRAYER BREAKFAST SPEECH:

The former Vice president unloads a lot in this portion theologically speaking. Off top he obviously felt that the subordination of the White man was wrong yet the suppression of the Negro was natural or normal. He employs strong Reformed theological language. In his understanding all that has took place was “the ordination of Providence”. Providence was another means of saying the “Creator” or God. As mentioned earlier in Reformed thought God is sovereignly in control of every aspect of the physical and immaterial planes of existence. No one can do a single thing on their own, every action is God. Alexander Hamilton Stephens also appeals to a popular misinterpretation of a biblical passage to justify his White Supremacist rhetoric. To top it off he even applies a text reserved for Jesus to their racist government as if to solidify the fact that their actions was the will of God.

VOTD Revelation 7:15

Rev 7:15 Therefore they are before the throne of God, and serve Him day and night in His temple. And He who sits on the throne will dwell among them.
Rev 7:16 They shall neither hunger anymore nor thirst anymore; the sun shall not strike them, nor any heat;
Rev 7:17 for the Lamb who is in the midst of the throne will shepherd them and lead them to living fountains of waters. And God will wipe away every tear from their eyes.”

Answered Questions – Open Theism Nearing Process Thought

From a Reddit Question and Answer with Greg Boyd:

Hey Greg! As a theology student, I’ve been very influenced by you in my own journey, and you helped me deal with many important theological issues during formative and important times of my life. So thanks! :)
So, here’s my question (which I hope will be answered tomorrow): You’ve written widely about the Warfare Worldview, and about the problems with the classical theological tradition and its “Blueprint worldview”, with its various explanations of evil and the sovereignty and omniscience of God. In books like “God of the Possible”, “God at War” and “Is God to Blame?”, you’ve pointed out the vulnerability and pitfalls of these theological traditions, in which we seem to have to justify even the worst cruelties in the world as “simply a part of God’s plan”.
With all that in mind, however, I’m wondering if you’ve anything to say about the problems and vulnerabilities of the theologies that elevates free will, spiritual warfare and human agency too much? Is there not a very real risk that people who are not as theologically nuanced as you will feel a kind of constant stress that prayer, spiritual warfare and “just a little bit more church work” could solve all the problems around them?
PS. And as a related question – despite your criticism, can you still see merit in the many, many spiritual giants who have simply assumed that God is guiding everything that happens to them?

Greg responds:

Thanks for sharing the kind words about my works. You raise a great point. People tend to ride the pendulum, reacting to one position by going to the opposite extreme. So yes, people can absolutely put too much stress on human free will that they minimize God’s providential rule. And this results in them thinking everything is up to THEM. And the direction some Open Theists are moving today, being overly influence by Process thought, is beginning to almost border on deism. This concerns me a lot.
As for your PS, I absolutely find merit in many spiritual giants who espoused the blueprint worldview. I have found great insights in Origen, Augustine, Aquinas, Luther, Calvin, Barth (ESPECIALLY) Barth and many many others. Bro Lawrence is one of my all time favs (“Practicing the Presence”), yet his thought is as thoroughly blueprint as it gets!

Apologetics Thursday – Atheists Claim Free Will Contradiction

Do Humans Have Free Will, from Bible Contradictions:

Yes.

Joshua 24:15

And if it seem evil unto you to serve the LORD, choose you this day whom ye will serve; whether the gods which your fathers served that [were] on the other side of the flood, or the gods of the Amorites, in whose land ye dwell: but as for me and my house, we will serve the LORD.

No.

Jeremiah 10:23

O LORD, I know that the way of man [is] not in himself: [it is] not in man that walketh to direct his steps.

Acts 13:48

And when the Gentiles heard this, they were glad, and glorified the word of the Lord: and as many as were ordained to eternal life believed.

Jude 1:4

For there are certain men crept in unawares, who were before of old ordained to this condemnation, ungodly men, turning the grace of our God into lasciviousness, and denying the only Lord God, and our Lord Jesus Christ

Bible Contradictions lists maybe one verse for free will. But they do show a basic understanding that when the Bible gives choices, it does so under the presumption that people can in fact choose one option or the other. The Bible is filled with such verses.

The verses listed against free will are approached by Biblical Contradictions either as a gross misunderstanding of free will or a presumption of fatalism. If a father says “The way of my son is not his own will, I direct him” this is not a claim for fatalism or a counterclaim for free will. This is just a general control statement. Sometimes sons are even controlled against their will, but no one stipulates that the son no longer has free will because their resistance failed.

In Acts 13:48, the verb could very well be reflexive. The context suggests as much, as shown by Jesse Morrell.

On the face value reading, Jude 1:4 suggests mankind has free will. Who are the individuals marked out for condemnation? Those who turn grace to lewdness and deny Jesus. In Jude 1:18, the author even goes so far as to point out it is “their own ungodly lusts”. And interestingly enough, Jude adds in a call to save these people. In verse 23, Jude calls for believers to “pull out of the fire” those who are failing.

Biblical Contradictions doesn’t seem to notice the point of the author with verse 4. Jude is saying that God has prepared a judgment place for those who reject Him. The author is not saying individuals were picked by name to suffer this judgment.

Miller on the God’s Reputation with Others

From God’s Moral Government of Love:

“Why must God show that he is a fair, just, and loving, and not an arbitrary ruler? Because he cares about the opinions and good will of the onlooking universe. He is willing to have His government, His laws, which reflect His character, examined and evaluated by His created beings. This understanding of God’s sovereignty and justice in relation to human free will was the key that unlocked the door to the moral government of God; this conception of God’s government provided the framework for evangelical Christians insisting that human governments must act with morality and even love towards its citizens.

Miller on the Origin of Double Predestination

From God’s Moral Government of Love:

Neither Luther nor Calvin, however, made pre-destination the central concern of their theologies. Luther was quick to say that pre-destination only had to do with the hidden God, the Deus Absconditus, and that Christians should focus on the choices and grace that the revealed God has promised to all. Likewise, Calvin did not advocate “double predestination,” where God creates some men to save them, and creates others with the intention of damning them. This stern doctrine was a later addition by his successors in Geneva, Theodore Beza and others.

Lutheranism is not known for its strict doctrines of election and sovereignty, largely because of the influence of Melanchthon. Also a first generation reformer, Melanchthon was willing to allow the puzzle of divine foreknowledge and human freedom to go unsolved, rather than insist that there was no free will. Due to Melanchthon’s influence, Lutheranism took a more moderate path in relation to pre-destination, with a general rejection of notions of double predestination and some openness to human choice.

Worship Sunday – Hallelujah (Your Love is Amazing)

Lyrics:

“Hallelujah (Your Love Is Amazing)”

Your love is amazing
Steady and unchanging
Your love is a mountain
Firm beneath my feet

Your love is a mystery
How You gently lift me
When I am surrounded
Your love carries me

Your love is surprising
I can feel it rising
All the joy that’s growing
Deep inside of me
And every time I see you
All your goodness shines through
And I can feel this God song rising up in me

Hallelujah, hallelujah, hallelujah
Your love makes me sing
Hallelujah, hallelujah, hallelujah
Your love makes me sing

Your love is surprising
I can feel it rising
All the joy that’s growing
Deep inside of me
And every time I see you
All your goodness shines through
And I can feel this God song rising up in me

VeggieTales Creator on Intellectual Honesty

From Phil Vischer’s blog:

My friend Skye warned me when I said I was engaging with some online atheists. “Are you SURE you want to go there?!?” I believe is what he said. Not that he felt I would lose my faith or anything. But, having spent a few college years debating with atheists, he already knew that those who engage in this peculiar sport are typically more interested in victory than truth. Which, means, above all else, yield no ground. Show no weakness. No possible signs of uncertainty regarding one’s premises. No openness to altering one’s position.

And as unappealing as this attitude might be in an atheist, it is infinitely MORE unappealing in a follower of Christ.

Answered Questions – Open Theism and Relativity

From a Reddit Question and Answer with Greg Boyd:

I apologize beforehand if I butcher any concepts about science or Open Theism in this question. I realize the potential for pitfalls are numerous here, but here goes:
From what I can understand, Open Theism seems to operate under the fact that time is somewhat constant. But we know that time is relative, it moves at different paces based on different factors, like how fast you’re moving. (I think that’s why Einstein refers to it as space-time). Given that this is the case, how is it even possible for God and humanity to have the same time-reference to make Open Theism make sense? It seems to me that it wouldn’t even take a diety to see “into the future”, it would just take someone with the appropriate technology on another plane of time, and they can “look into our future” by observing Earth from their position. I guess what I’m basically asking is, does the fact that time is relative render Open Theism incoherent?

Boyd responds:

The theory of relativity states that WHEN an event takes place is relative to the distance an observer is from the event and the speed they’re traveling relative to that event. But the starting point of the theory is the event itself. It works from the present to the past. We each have our own “now.” But never is there a perspective that experiences the event BEFORE the event takes place. RT has nothing to say about the nature of the future, in other words.
Moreover, because it is a scientific theory, it applies to finite observers within the universe, relative to each other. It says nothing about what an omnipresent observer would observe. For such an observer — God — there would be a “cosmic now” that embraces and correlates all the finite “nows.”

Apologetics Thursday – Fatalism Prooftext Roundup

By Christopher Fisher

The Ranting Reformer states:

The open theist maintains that we must have libertarian free will in order to be rightly held accountable for our actions. There are no explicit verses in Scripture that demonstrate our wills are independent of God’s will. Libertarian free will is more of a philosophical assumption, failing to take into account one’s will and desires in choosing or not choosing, failing to recognize the role of causality in events that take place. So what they have done to ensure the Bible teaches that we have libertarian free will is they have removed God’s divine foreknowledge.

Those findings listed above are staggering and devastating to one who holds to libertarian free will. Now, obviously we cannot go through all of verses demonstrating that God brings about human free actions that we are responsible for, so we will examine a few where we see this clearly, and I will list more Scriptures at the end.

While some Open Theists maintain that God does not provide any coercive influences (See Thomas J Oord’s work), this is not a standard belief in Open Theism. Both the Dispensationalist and Moral Government spectrum of Open Theism would take strong issue with this. One glaring example is that this wing of Open Theists sees God’s warlike calls to Israel as being literal and not impugning the character of God. Influence does not negate free will.

I can offer my son $20 to mow the lawn. He can accept it or not, but it is not as if my offer of $20 somehow makes his choice unfree. Human decision is largely a product of cost-benefit analysis mixed with randomness (free will). If I knew my son wanted money to buy a present for a girl, I have extra assurance he will take my offer. None of this necessitates omniscient knowledge of the future or even coercion (although that wouldn’t hurt). Prediction Markets exists and function well precisely because human behavior is largely predictable.

The Ranting Reformer offers a list of prooftexts to show God’s influences on people. But this is the question: if people cannot deviate from God’s will, why does God have to perform special action to ensure the people act how He wishes (see the strange case of King Nebuchadnezzar)? In fact, the entire story of the Bible is God’s struggle to mold and shape people. Particularly this is true for Israel. In Isaiah, God laments “What more could I have done?” (Isa 5:4). In Jeremiah, God punishes Israel in vain (Jer 2:30). In Ezekiel, God abandons Israel to be gang raped. Finally, in Romans, God cuts Israel off for disobedience (Rom 11:20). Neither blessings or curses worked in bringing Israel to God.

A lot of the times, God’s influences work. It is easy to influence Pharaoh to be prideful. It is really easy to call Assyrians to attack in pursuit of land and wealth (Isa 7:18). But when God wants to influence people to love Him, the Bible overwhelmingly portrays God’s attempts as futile. It is a lot harder to influence a prideful Pharaoh to love God. It is a lot harder to make the Assyrians repent and worship God. It is a lot harder to make Israel stay true to God. In Israel’s case, sometimes God has to cut them off and graft in the Gentiles in order to try to make Israel jealous (Rom 11:11). When God wants to cut people off, who can resist God’s will (Rom 9:19)? But when God wants to make people love Him, even lawyers can thwart God (Luk 7:30).

VOTD Ezekiel 16:59-63

Eze 16:59 “For thus says the Lord GOD: I will deal with you as you have done, you who have despised the oath in breaking the covenant,
Eze 16:60 yet I will remember my covenant with you in the days of your youth, and I will establish for you an everlasting covenant.
Eze 16:61 Then you will remember your ways and be ashamed when you take your sisters, both your elder and your younger, and I give them to you as daughters, but not on account of the covenant with you.
Eze 16:62 I will establish my covenant with you, and you shall know that I am the LORD,
Eze 16:63 that you may remember and be confounded, and never open your mouth again because of your shame, when I atone for you for all that you have done, declares the Lord GOD.”

Divine Impassibility Talk on Reformed Forum

The full audio can be found on Reformed Forum

A quote from the audio (“God is not free”):

“As soon as you say something like ‘God has the freedom’ you immediate have to qualify… God doesnt stand deliberatively in any passive sense before a range of action.”
An excerpt from the webpage:

The Christ the Center panel meets with Rev. Dr. James Dolezal to discuss the much maligned doctrine of divine impassibility. Beginning with a look at Westminster Confession of Faith 2.1, that “There is but one only, living, and true God, who is infinite in being and perfection, a most pure spirit, invisible, without body, parts, or passions…” the panel looks at the biblical basis and importance of understanding, affirming, and developing a proper use of this doctrine that God does not have passions. Often taken to be a denial of, for instance, God’s love, it is shown that the truth is to the contrary. As simple and as pure act, God is love in the fullest sense without fluctuation or change which is the human lot. This discussion offers much food for thought.

Olson on Unwarrented Timelessness

From Roger Olson’s blog:

Nowhere does the biblical story of God, the biblical narrative that identifies God for us, and upon which classical Christian theology claims to be based, say or even hint that God is “outside of time” or “timeless” or that all times are “simultaneously before the eyes of God.” This view of God’s eternity entered into Christian theology from Greek philosophy which regarded time as imperfection. Greek philosophy was notoriously negative with regard to time. Hebrew thought was not; it regarded time and history as the framework for God’s action.

VOTD Ezekiel 16:17-19

Eze 16:17 You also took your beautiful jewels of my gold and of my silver, which I had given you, and made for yourself images of men, and with them played the whore.
Eze 16:18 And you took your embroidered garments to cover them, and set my oil and my incense before them.
Eze 16:19 Also my bread that I gave you—I fed you with fine flour and oil and honey—you set before them for a pleasing aroma; and so it was, declares the Lord GOD.

An Open Theist Struggles with Childhood Cancer

From a Facebook post:

I’ve experienced a lot of thoughts and feelings in the last few months, but anger at God has not been one of them. I do not believe God makes everything that happens, happen.. we have free-will and much of what happens around us is things unfolding, naturally. I do, however, believe that God can and does change things; He hears and responds to prayer which is why prayer is the best thing we can ask for and the best thing you can do for us (James 4:2-3 “You do not have because you do not ask God”).

I find the book of Job interesting and inspirational.. a story where Job loses everything but still praises God, and from reading the story, I gather that is what God wants us to do (though we are in a relationship and when you are in a relationship it can be normal to experience highs and lows.. I don’t think it’s ideal to be angry at God or question Him, but it happens and I’m not trying to make anyone who has been there feel bad or anything :) – I’ve been there) I know when I was younger I thought being angry at God was an effective means of getting Him to listen.. learning the story of Job taught me that God doesn’t want us to do that and He wants us to praise and trust Him and that is more impactful to Him than anger.. this doesn’t mean I will never struggle with this, but it has kept me strong and these are just my thoughts of the day :) we are still going strong in our faith.. we are grateful and more at His mercy than ever.

Caleb’s Carringbridge site.

Answered Questions – Boyd’s Early Church Influences

From a Reddit Question and Answer with Greg Boyd:

Hey Greg Boyd! Love your work!
In what ways do the early church fathers influence your theology? Do you have particular church fathers you read that help you?
Also, I host a podcast from Theologues.com. Would you be willing to come on?
God bless!

Greg responds:

GREAT question! I love the theology of pre-Constantinian fathers. They SO got cosmic spiritual warfare and how it affects this earth. And they ALL emphasized free will. Irenaeus used to be my favorite, but over the last view years I’ve been into Origen. My approach to violent portraits of God in the OT has been influenced by him.

Apologetics Thursday – God Makes the Mute

By Christopher Fisher

Triablogue posits a verse to show that God is the cause of all physical deformity:

Exod 4:11

Then the Lord said to him, “Who has made man’s mouth? Who makes him mute, or deaf, or seeing, or blind? Is it not I, the Lord? (Exod 4:11).

Some Christians, hoping apparently to limit God’s liability, effectively absolve God of responsibility for what goes on in the world. If a child is born blind, it is a result of a prenatal infection or genetic defect; God had nothing to do with it. If religious zealots bring down buildings and kill thousands, God was not involved. The problem with this is that it effectively limits God’s power and sovereignty. What if an infection was the proximate cause of a baby’s being born blind? Couldn’t God have saved the child if he had wanted to? Couldn’t God have stopped the mass-murderers? God cannot be almighty and all-knowing and also be absolved of responsibility for what happens in the world.

God’s response in Exod 4:11 is striking: he takes full responsibility for the suffering that people experience. He makes some blind, some deaf, and some mute. The text does not deny that there are proximate causes to such things (injuries, infections, etc.; the ancients knew nothing about viruses and bacteria, but they certainly knew that accidents and injuries could make a person blind or lame). Furthermore, the issue of human sin is never raised in God’s response. This passage is not at all concerned with proximate causes–human sin, like disease or injury, is really just another proximate cause. This text is focused on the ultimate cause, God, and does not shrink from affirming that God is in control of all that happens. Of course, the question of theodicy is very large, and merely asserting that God takes responsibility for all that happens in the world does not resolve all the issues. This topic is explored much more fully in Job. D. Garrett, A Commentary on Exodus (Kregel 2014), 215-16.

What is interesting about this verse is that Triablogue uses the ESV rendering of the verse:

Exo 4:11 Then the LORD said to him, “Who has made man’s mouth? Who makes him mute, or deaf, or seeing, or blind? Is it not I, the LORD?

The NKJV gives an alternative rendering:

Exo 4:11 So the LORD said to him, “Who has made man’s mouth? Or who makes the mute, the deaf, the seeing, or the blind? Have not I, the LORD?

The ESV seems to in fact say that God is the cause all birth defects, at minimum. The NKJV merely says that God makes all people (some may be mute and some may be blind). The Hebrew, as languages tend to do, can support either. So then the context must be examined.

The immediate point of the verse is that God is trying to convince Moses to go to Egypt on God’s behalf. That is not a fatalistic or Calvinist concept. God is arguing that Moses can speak, despite Moses’ lack of confidence, because God will be with him. It is interesting to note that God loses this argument with Moses. God gets angry, gives up, and appoints Aaron to be Moses’ mouthpiece:

Exo 4:14 So the anger of the LORD was kindled against Moses, and He said: “Is not Aaron the Levite your brother? I know that he can speak well. And look, he is also coming out to meet you. When he sees you, he will be glad in his heart.

In a context where God’s plan is thwarted by Moses, the meaning that Triablogue gives to the verse is highly unreasonable. God is not claiming to control all life changing calamities forever into the future. God is not controlling all things even in the present; sometimes petty complaints thwart God’s will. The text is just not about Calvinistic sovereignty.

If God is claiming to cause birth defects, God’s reasoning to Moses would have to be thus: “I am the one who created your mouth (and everyone’s mouth) and I know the limits to which I created it. I know you can speak for Me. Your argument is invalid.”

But the context of Exodus 3 and 4 is about God enabling Moses with power. So, while God could be claiming to cause birth defects, it is more likely that God is claiming to have power. God is the creator of all men. And the creator of all men would help Moses communicate. Moses does not have to worry about his speech because he has Yahweh on his side (see also Exo 3:12). The very next verse says:

Exo 4:12 Now therefore, go, and I will be with your mouth and teach you what you shall say.”

Tool on Free Will

Tool, who is not a Christian band, explores the effects of Free Will:

Angels on the sideline,
Puzzled and amused.
Why did Father give these humans free will?
Now they’re all confused.

Don’t these talking monkeys know that
Eden has enough to go around?
Plenty in this holy garden, silly old monkeys,
Where there’s one you’re bound to divide it

Right in two

Angels on the sideline,
Baffled and confused.
Father blessed them all with reason.
And this is what they choose.
(and this is what they choose)

Monkey, killing monkey, killing monkey
Over pieces of the ground.
Silly monkeys give them thumbs,
They forge a blade,
And when there’s one they’re bound to divide it,

Right in two.
Right in two.

Monkey, killing monkey, killing monkey
Over pieces of the ground.
Silly monkeys give them thumbs,
They make a club
And beat their brother… down.
How they survived so misguided is a mystery.
Repugnant is a creature who would squander the ability
to lift an eye to heaven conscious of his fleeting time here

Gotta divide it all right in two (x4)

They fight, till they die
Over earth, over sky
They fight, over life,
Over brawn, over air and light,
Over love, over sun. Over blood
They fight, or they die, all for what? For our rising!

Angels on the sideline again
Been too long with patience and reason
Angels on the sideline again
Wondering when this tug of war will end

Gotta divide it all right in two (x3)
Right in two

Right in two..

VOTD Ezekiel 14:10-11

Eze 14:10 And they shall bear their punishment—the punishment of the prophet and the punishment of the inquirer shall be alike—
Eze 14:11 that the house of Israel may no more go astray from me, nor defile themselves anymore with all their transgressions, but that they may be my people and I may be their God, declares the Lord GOD.”

New Open Theist Blog – Theological Overload

Theological Overload is a new Open Theist blog written by the administrator of the Facebook group Christian Free Thinkers.

An extract from the first post:

This is the key to understanding open theism: that the past present and future do not co-exist, but are ordered sequentially and in linear form. The past no longer exists, the future does not yet exist, and all that exists is the present (which a nanosecond ago was the future and a nanosecond later is the past). Once that is understood, biblical prophecy can be seen for what it is – the revelation of God’s own determined plans for the future. God can declare the end from the beginning because it is HIS plan, for example. Open theism explains the countless incidences in scripture where God changes his mind or learns new things without resorting to anthropomorphism or anthopopaphism, both of which remove any concept of God, in whose image we are made, truly communicating with mankind.

VOTD Ezekiel 13:22

Eze 13:22 Because you have disheartened the righteous falsely, although I have not grieved him, and you have encouraged the wicked, that he should not turn from his evil way to save his life,
Eze 13:23 therefore you shall no more see false visions nor practice divination. I will deliver my people out of your hand. And you shall know that I am the LORD.”

NT Wright on the Problem of Evil

From a question and answer session with NT Wright:

Part of our trouble is that in the Western world, we’ve assumed that God is, as it were, the celestial CEO of this thing called the universe incorporated. And then, as one of Woody Allen’s characters says: “I sort of believe in God, but it looks like He’s basically an underachiever.” In other words, He’s not a very good CEO, He’s not good at running this show.

But actually, the world is much more complicated than that. It’s not simply a machine or a business with God as the CEO. God is involved with it in ways which it’s hard for us now, particularly in the modern world, to grasp.

When we read the stories of Jesus and see what is going on in those stories, perhaps we need to rethink the meaning of the word “God” around who we see in Jesus. Then all sorts of things come clearer and into sharper focus. It’s not simply a matter of “Has God blundered? Has He got it wrong?” But no, He’s been in the middle of this mess with us and He’s taken the worst the world can do onto Himself. He has launched His project of new creation. That’s what the story of Jesus is all about.

VOTD Ezekiel 13:14-15

Eze 13:14 And I will break down the wall that you have smeared with whitewash, and bring it down to the ground, so that its foundation will be laid bare. When it falls, you shall perish in the midst of it, and you shall know that I am the LORD.
Eze 13:15 Thus will I spend my wrath upon the wall and upon those who have smeared it with whitewash, and I will say to you, The wall is no more, nor those who smeared it,

Answered Questions – How Can God Ensure Every Knee Will Bow

From a Reddit Question and Answer with Greg Boyd:

How can the Open Theist God promise every knee will bow, and every tongue shall confess Jesus is Lord, without compromising anyone’s free will?

[–]GregBoyd[S] 3 points 11 days ago
How can a Calvinist affirm this without being a universalist? Look, this is an equally challenging passage for everyone who isn’t a universalist. For my two cents, I’m inclined to see this passage as expressing God’s loving bear hug around all humanity with the hope that all will come in. Yet, because love must be chosen, people always have the freedom to say NO THANKS.

VOTD Deuteronomy 6:21-23

Deu 6:21 then you shall say to your son: ‘We were slaves of Pharaoh in Egypt, and the LORD brought us out of Egypt with a mighty hand;
Deu 6:22 and the LORD showed signs and wonders before our eyes, great and severe, against Egypt, Pharaoh, and all his household.
Deu 6:23 Then He brought us out from there, that He might bring us in, to give us the land of which He swore to our fathers.

AW Pink of Foreknowledge and Election

From The Attributes of God by A.W. Pink:

God foreknows what will be because He has decreed what shall be. It is therefore a reversing of the order of Scripture, a putting of the cart before the horse, to affirm that God elects because He foreknows people. The truth is, He “foreknows” because He has elected. This removes the ground or cause of election from outside the creature, and places it in God’s own sovereign will. God purposed in Himself to elect a certain people, not because of anything good in them or from them, either actual or foreseen, but solely out of His own mere pleasure. As to why He chose the ones He did, we do not know, and can only say, “Even so, Father, for so it seemed good in Thy sight.” The plain truth of Romans 8:29 is that God, before the foundation of the world, singled out certain sinners and appointed them unto salvation (2 Thess. 2:13). This is clear from the concluding words of the verse: “Predestinated to be conformed to the image of His Son,” etc. God did not predestinate those whom He foreknew were “conformed,” but, on the contrary, those whom He “foreknew” (i.e., loved and elected) He predestinated to be conformed. Their conformity to Christ is not the cause, but the effect of God’s foreknowledge and predestination.

Sproul Talks About Open Theism

Video hosted at Ligonier

Abstract:

Israel’s Rejection Not Final (Part 3)

Sermon Text: Romans 11:26-35

In this lesson, Dr. Sproul discusses open theism and whether God has full knowledge of all events. If an event comes to pass we can believe it is His will. God does not wait for the sinner to change so he can come to God, but God goes to the sinner and changes the sinner and brings the sinner to Him. The lesson concludes with a discussion of prayer and how prayer changes things.