Egad man! Molinism V Open Theism

[President-Elect $cirisme]

I had alot of time to think this weekend, and I started to think about my atheism arguments, and then I began to think of freewill, which inevitably leads to foreknowledge.

I believe that God knows every possible outcome of any decision He makes, or we make. I have also, always believed that God can trace which outcome paticular out come will happen and that this can only be changed by Him.(ie, He knows everything to begin with, and the only way this can change is if He changes it)

However, I am beginning to wonder about that. For instance, if God KNOWS a paticular person will never come to Christ, why should He even try to bring them to Him? Or(rephrased), why does He give them up to their gods, when He knows they(the pagans) will not accept Him, anyway?

This thread is for all Theists, especially Molinists and OVTs, to comment on. :smile:

[Jaltus]

Or(rephrased), why does He give them up to their gods, when He knows they will not accept Him, anyway?

Ephesians 4:26-27
26 "In your anger do not sin": {26 Psalm 4:4} Do not let the sun go down while you are still angry,
27 and do not give the devil a foothold.

I would argue that what happens is when someone sins, God allows it so that they might grow. After a certain amount of time (eg Pharaoh in Exodus), their sin is so grevious that God hardens their hearts such that they see the full consequences of sinning. Or, as Paul put it, that their very soul might be saved on the last day. If they cannot see the evil of sin as they totally wallow in it, then nothing will save them anyway.

Of course, this assumes God allows free will, but you did say OVers and Molinists.

[yxboom]

The point I see Cirisme asking is why does God "allow" or better yet bother with reprobating someone who is going to go to Hell anyway, since God already knows this person's destiny even before the person was born. It would come across as a false attempt at play acting just to say "HA! HA! I told you so!". Of course he can correct me if I am wrong and as Molinist you wouldn't be explicitly be referred to in this instance since you hold to a different form of EDF which is why you are a closet OVer.

[President-Elect $cirisme]

The point I see Cirisme asking is why does God "allow" or better yet bother with reprobating someone who is going to go to Hell anyway, since God already knows this person's destiny even before the person was born

Exactly.

[joelkaki]

However, I am beginning to wonder about that. For instance, if God KNOWS a paticular person will never come to Christ, why should He even try to bring them to Him? Or(rephrased), why does He give them up to their gods, when He knows they(the pagans) will not accept Him, anyway?


The statement in here that kind of worries me is "try to bring them to Him." That is really kind of one of my major problems with both M and OV (and even traditional A) is that it makes it seem like God's giving it everything he's got to get a person saved, but it just isn't enough, because the people stop him.

But that is just the way I see it.

Joel

[President-Elect $cirisme]

God's giving it everything he's got to get a person saved, but it just isn't enough

:hrm:

[yxboom]

Yesterday @ 07:04 PM post located here (http://www.theologyweb.com/forum/showthread.php?s=&postid=81498#post81498)
joelkaki:

The statement in here that kind of worries me is "try to bring them to Him." That is really kind of one of my major problems with both M and OV (and even traditional A) is that it makes it seem like God's giving it everything he's got to get a person saved, but it just isn't enough, because the people stop him.

But that is just the way I see it.

Joel
Isn't that what Jesus was explicitly saying in:

Luke 13:34 O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the city that kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to it! How often would I have gathered your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you would not!

Or God saying in:

Isaiah 5:4 What more was there to do for my vineyard, that I have not done in it? When I looked for it to yield grapes, why did it yield wild grapes?

:hrm:

[Jaltus]

Cirisme,

Your question, then, is what is the point of predestination if it is based on free choice?

The point of it is that God could do other, if He wished. God could destroy us all right now, and we would deserve it, since we are all in sin (give or take Sozo who has no concept of future justification). Predestination is not about God determining what we do, it is about God determining not to do other. In other words, He is allowing us free choice even though He does not have to (I think OVers would generally agree with me on that as well). God is omniscient and therefore can have any outcome He wants, but He allows free will in order to have meaningful relationships with His creations.

I hope that makes sense. I know geebob would get it since I refined some of this when we talked about a year ago or so.

[yxboom]

That was great Jaltus :thumb:

[President-Elect $cirisme]

Your question, then, is what is the point of predestination if it is based on free choice?

Not really, I must not have been very clear in my first post. We know that God will turn people over to their false gods if they reject Him enough.(I was going to post the verse, but I lost it and can't find it in E-Sword :argh:) My question is, if He knows that they will reject Him anyway, why bother? Obviously, there are some exceptions, such as Pharoh. Because of Pharoh's refusal to heed Moses, God was able to show His glory to billions of people throughout history. And, as for your first post, what is there to grow? They're pagans who reject God! And for this...

I am also praying for everyone else who will have faith because of what my followers will say about me. -John 17:20

...does this mean that He knows who will come to Him? Obviously, according to that translation, the answer is yes; but I notice that several translation translate this differently. For example, the WEB says... Not for these only do I pray, but for those also who believe in me through their word

...and verse 21 says that they may all be one ...which SEEMS to indicate that He isn't entirely sure whether they will be saved or will not be.

This post probably makes no sense at all, but I am trying to think this through and get people's comments. Thanks for your thoughts...

[yxboom]

You are referring to this correct?

Romans 1:28 And since they did not see fit to acknowledge God, God gave them up to a debased mind to do what ought not to be done.

As for Pharaoh I believe Pharaoh could have repented and by the conversion of Pharaoh would itself have been a tremendous witness to the "billions" it just panned out that Pharaoh choose to witness God's judgment rather than mercy.

Exodus 10:3 So Moses and Aaron went in to Pharaoh and said to him, "Thus says the LORD, the God of the Hebrews, 'How long will you refuse to humble yourself before me? Let my people go, that they may serve me.

To add to the John 7:21 verse Paul says:
Acts 17:24 The God who made the world and everything in it, being Lord of heaven and earth, does not live in temples made by man, 25 nor is he served by human hands, as though he needed anything, since he himself gives to all mankind life and breath and everything. 26 And he made from one man every nation of mankind to live on all the face of the earth, having determined allotted periods and the boundaries of their dwelling place, 27 that they should seek God, in the hope that they might feel their way toward him and find him. Yet he is actually not far from each one of us,

God is working and even set things in motion throughout history so that men "should" seek Him and "in the hope" that men "might" find him.

[Blake Reas]

Yesterday @ 10:28 PM post located here (http://www.theologyweb.com/forum/showthread.php?s=&postid=82346#post82346)
Jaltus:

Cirisme,

Your question, then, is what is the point of predestination if it is based on free choice?

The point of it is that God could do other, if He wished. God could destroy us all right now, and we would deserve it, since we are all in sin (give or take Sozo who has no concept of future justification). Predestination is not about God determining what we do, it is about God determining not to do other. In other words, He is allowing us free choice even though He does not have to (I think OVers would generally agree with me on that as well). God is omniscient and therefore can have any outcome He wants, but He allows free will in order to have meaningful relationships with His creations.

I hope that makes sense. I know geebob would get it since I refined some of this when we talked about a year ago or so.

Jaltus is God's foreknowledge in Molinism happen when he chooses the world with free creatures that is the best possible world? Just curious, I find Molinism rather interesting. Also do you have the same problem dealing with the "repentance" passages?
God Bless,
Blake

[Xmansmommy]

04-28-2003 @ 07:14 PM post located here (http://www.theologyweb.com/forum/showthread.php?s=&postid=81262#post81262)
yxboom:
Of course he can correct me if I am wrong and as Molinist you wouldn't be explicitly be referred to in this instance since you hold to a different form of EDF which is why you are a closet OVer.

:rofl: Don't worry Ciris, Y's been calling me that for quite some time. :shy:

[Solly]

04-28-2003 @ 09:53 PM post located here (http://www.theologyweb.com/forum/showthread.php?s=&postid=81147#post81147)
cirisme:
For instance, if God KNOWS a paticular person will never come to Christ, why should He even try to bring them to Him? Or(rephrased), why does He give them up to their gods, when He knows they(the pagans) will not accept Him, anyway?


I have to admit I have had trouble trying to understand what you are trying to say. but here goes...

For instance, if God KNOWS a paticular person will never come to Christ, why should He even try to bring them to Him?

From the Reformed pov, the only people God tries to bring to him are those he will most certainly bring to him. While many may come under the sound of the Gospel, yet most will only hear with the outer ear, being deaf to the Spirit.

Or(rephrased), why does He give them up to their gods, when He knows they(the pagans) will not accept Him, anyway?

We know that God will turn people over to their false gods if they reject Him enough

They have already gone to their gods. They have already rejected God; it is not whether they have done it enough, they have done it in toto. He then "gives them up" to a reprobate mind, making their wisdom foolishness, and they exchange God for idols and bad practices, to wallow in the consequences of their rejection of him.

Remember, the decree of reprobation is one of passing by for salvation. Leaving people where they already are by their sinful rebellion from him. Hell is the ultimate and necessary consequence of that.

Yxboom said:
As for Pharaoh I believe Pharaoh could have repented and by the conversion of Pharaoh would itself have been a tremendous witness to the "billions" it just panned out that Pharaoh choose to witness God's judgment rather than mercy.


Pharoah could not have repented savingly if God did not give him that grace; he might have recognised his situation - as he seemingly did - but he did so only in recognising God as his "enemy", God did not give him a saving revelation of himself. As with seer, there seems to be a confusion between God's "natural" revelation of himself, as in Rom 1 & 2, and his saving revelation of himself in Christ by the spirit, as in Rom 3.21 onwards. Pharoah saw God's eternal power and Godhead at work, he saw no grace.

The trouble with the advocates of Free Will is that they must make man's will neutral in all this, poised between two objects. They ignore the fact that volition is based on desire, and until God gives us the new desires after him, we will not turn to him.

[Jaltus]

If this were not the LA department, I would shred Solly's last post.

Blake,

I would argue that this is indeed the best possible world, but I would be the only one. Other Molinists would argue this just happens to be the world. Others are theoretically better.

I have never made up my mind about repentance passages, but I think they do destroy classical theism (simple, impassible, etc).

[Blake Reas]

Today @ 12:05 AM post located here (http://www.theologyweb.com/forum/showthread.php?s=&postid=84522#post84522)
Jaltus:

If this were not the LA department, I would shred Solly's last post.

Blake,

I would argue that this is indeed the best possible world, but I would be the only one. Other Molinists would argue this just happens to be the world. Others are theoretically better.

I have never made up my mind about repentance passages, but I think they do destroy classical theism (simple, impassible, etc).

Interesting it would seem to me that judging from God's goodness depicted in scripture that he would have created the world that is the best possible with taking into account human Freedom on the Molinist view. Why do they deny that this is the best?

Blake

[yxboom]

Blake this is the Liberal Arts Dept and as such cirisme asks the questions which participants respond but participatant interaction between each other is not allowed.

[President-Elect $cirisme]

04-29-2003 @ 03:56 PM post located here (http://www.theologyweb.com/forum/showthread.php?s=&postid=82385#post82385)
yxboom:

You are referring to this correct?

Romans 1:28 And since they did not see fit to acknowledge God, God gave them up to a debased mind to do what ought not to be done.

That's it! Thanks. :thumb:

As for Pharaoh I believe Pharaoh could have repented and by the conversion of Pharaoh would itself have been a tremendous witness to the "billions" it just panned out that Pharaoh choose to witness God's judgment rather than mercy.

Exodus 10:3 So Moses and Aaron went in to Pharaoh and said to him, "Thus says the LORD, the God of the Hebrews, 'How long will you refuse to humble yourself before me? Let my people go, that they may serve me.

To add to the John 7:21 verse Paul says:
Acts 17:24 The God who made the world and everything in it, being Lord of heaven and earth, does not live in temples made by man, 25 nor is he served by human hands, as though he needed anything, since he himself gives to all mankind life and breath and everything. 26 And he made from one man every nation of mankind to live on all the face of the earth, having determined allotted periods and the boundaries of their dwelling place, 27 that they should seek God, in the hope that they might feel their way toward him and find him. Yet he is actually not far from each one of us,

God is working and even set things in motion throughout history so that men "should" seek Him and "in the hope" that men "might" find him.

You nailed it on the head, this is the basis of this thread.

"Hope" that they "might" find God, does not sound like that of a God who knows all things.

I have another question(you, Yx, don't have to respond since I already know what you're answer will be. :teeth: But please do present scripture)

Do you believe that God's knowledge is restricted in only not knowing whether someone will come to Christ, or are there other areas where God goes :shrug:. Is this a flawed premise?

Why or why not?

I don't mean to sound like a test :lol:, I'm just extremely curious as to what everyone thinks, and(more importantly) why they think it.

[yxboom]

Today @ 06:58 PM post located here (http://www.theologyweb.com/forum/showthread.php?s=&postid=84713#post84713)
cirisme:

Do you believe that God's knowledge is restricted in only not knowing whether someone will come to Christ, or are there other areas where God goes :shrug:. Is this a flawed premise?

Why or why not?

No I don't believe this is limited to only whether a person is saved but rather the nature of the future. God doesn't go :shrug: He goes :hrm: because the future is just that......future. God knows things and knows them exhaustively but the future is not there to be known. What God knows is true, if I am truly free I can choose NOT to be saved and to be saved BUT in regards to EDF If I choose to be saved is true and if I choose not to be saved is also true I have fallen into God's contradiction of omniscience. If God knows that I will be saved is true before I become saved than I don't have the true free will to not choose to be saved and my future is determined. Whether I will be saved or not MUST not be true until I choose to be saved for my choice to be truly free. Geebob and I get into this further here (http://www.theologyweb.com/forum/showthread.php?postid=82400#post82400) following it up here (http://www.theologyweb.com/forum/showthread.php?postid=84416#post84416). This side of the issue is really more philisophical than biblical so can I prove this biblically beyond a shadow of doubt. I doubt it. However I would contend that when God says
Jeremiah 3:7
And I thought, 'After she has done all this she will return to me,' but she did not return, and her treacherous sister Judah saw it.

1 Samuel 2:30 Therefore the LORD the God of Israel declares: 'I promised that your house and the house of your father should go in and out before me forever,' but now the LORD declares: 'Far be it from me, for those who honor me I will honor, and those who despise me shall be lightly esteemed.

God was genuinely let down. God didn't say "Ooops!" or "Boy! Did I mess up" but rather in Isaiah 5 God states

Isaiah 5:4 What more was there to do for my vineyard, that I have not done in it? When I looked for it to yield grapes, why did it yield wild grapes?

God didn't fail, Israel (men inclusive) did. They could only because God has given them a true chance to not fail, in His words He did all that He could (sorry Calvinists :poke:) but that would mean He did all He could outside of making them Himself.

[geebob]

However, I am beginning to wonder about that. For instance, if God KNOWS a paticular person will never come to Christ, why should He even try to bring them to Him? Or(rephrased), why does He give them up to their gods, when He knows they(the pagans) will not accept Him, anyway?

This may be a very close sentiment to the reason that I am an open theist. I insist that all men in some point in their lives have a chance for salvation. I cannot imagine how this can be true if for some men, there has always been a certainty about their damnation, thus I reject that the certainty exists, and as God is omniscient, he must know the truth of the matter, that the certainty does not exist.

God knows things and knows them exhaustively but the future is not there to be known.

Open theists have several good strategies in explaining the compatibility of the open future and God's omniscience and yx's statement above is one such stategy.

I like Greg Boyd's strategy here and with that, we say that God does know the future and that he knows it exhaustively. But he does not know it as settled. Basically, the future's existence is not on a par with the present's existence, but it exists to the extent that we can speak of it meaningfully, and there is an exhaustive set of truth about the future and that is in terms of certainties and multiple possibilities (some things are certain and some things are not). The truth about many of your future free decisions is in terms of multiple possibilities. So it's not that God doesn't know your future free acts. What is the case is that he knows your future free acts in terms of the range of possibilities that can describe those acts. So he may know that tomorrow I may have oatmeal for breakfast or eggs and toast and he knows the probability for each choice, for example, there may be a 10 % chance that I will choose eggs and an 80 % chance that I will choose oatmeal and 10% chance that I will do something else (perhaps eat something that my dad may bring home from the office) And he knows furthure that there is a 0% chance that I will have cold cerial (though we have a cupboard full of cerial) and a 0% chance that I will have a fried egg without toast and of coarse, all of these probabilities are compatible with the exact same set of circumstances that I will find myself in tomorrow (molinism cannot say that).

take note that God with an open future as I've presented above knows far more than a God who knows everything only in terms certainties. In such a case, God would know only that there was a 100 % chance that I would choose eggs and not oatmeal. So a world with an open future is potentially more complex.

[President-Elect $cirisme]

Thank you, Geebob!! That actually sounds eerily similar to what I already believe. I believe that there are billions of possibilities from the start of creation to the end of it and that God knows which paticular possibility will happen, and only He can change it.

But I am(obviously) questioning that. :smile: Anyone else ant to comment?

I don't care who you are, OV or not. Please add your comments. :cheers:

[nomad]

I believe that there are billions of possibilities from the start of creation to the end of it and that God knows which paticular possibility will happen, and only He can change it.


not OV (yet). but i thought that was sort of the opposite of OV? that there are billions of possibilities, and God knows all the possibilities, but not which will actually happen? and also that free will determines that only you make the choices; God can influence the choice, but not change it directly.

i'm still trying to get a handle on exactly what OV is. every time i think i understand it (not even getting to actually evaluating it yet), i don't.

[geebob]

I believe that there are billions of possibilities from the start of creation to the end of it and that God knows which paticular possibility will happen, and only He can change it.

as nomad has noted, this isn't the open view and there is one subtle difference herre from what I presented. I don't believe that God always knows which possibility will occur.

If he did, there would be a 100% chance that that possibility would occur. With that in mind, I think what I wrote will be a little more clear in how it works with an open future.

i'm still trying to get a handle on exactly what OV is. every time i think i understand it (not even getting to actually evaluating it yet), i don't.

discussing it at discussion forums like this can always be helpful, but the best thing is always to get it from the horses mouth. For a concise scholarly, yet accessible work on the topic, I'd recomend The openness of God by Pinnock, Hasker, Sanders and others.

For the most complete treatment (though certainly not exhaustive) on the topic, I'd recomend John Sander's The God Who Risks. That book is also quite accessible to the layman.

Apart from books, two great sites on the internet are www.opentheism.org and www.gregboyd.org .

[President-Elect $cirisme]

Thanks, Geebob. Anyone else care to comment?

[India]

My 2 cents...

I'm surprised no one mentioned Romans 9:22-23:

"What if God, choosing to show his wrath and make his power known, bore with great patience the objects of his wrath--prepared for destruction? What if he did this to make the riches of his glory known to the objects of his mercy, whom he prepared in advance for glory..."

This seems to say that everyone who is ultimately condemned, not just "exceptions" like Pharaoh, is allowed to live and reject God because God has included them in his plan to glorify himself. God wants everyone, even the condemned, to be saved; yet they are not, as YX pointed out (Mt 23:37).

I believe that God knows in advance that the condemned will be condemned - he's not suprised when they reject him, nor did he somehow fail in his efforts. Free choice means it's still their choice, and even if God does everything imaginable they can still choose to reject him. God does "try" to save them by giving them the same general revelation that is available to everyone, even answering their prayers, etc. according to his will* - after all, he created them and he loves them. You could say that God loves them enough that he still does all these things for him, even knowing they'll ultimately reject him.

Does God's foreknowledge mean the condemned are somehow forced to reject God? No; no more than our knowledge of the outcome of the Civil War means that if we went back in time, America would be forced to go to war or the South would be forced to lose.

*Balaam, for instance. Presumably he's condemned; yet he was God's mouthpiece and talked with God.

Hope this helps,
India