Man's Power over God....

[seer]

Now I knew that would get you attention. But this is a serious issue that goes directly to the unbiblical doctrine of impassibility.

Definition:incapable of suffering or of experiencing pain.

In the theological sense God is unaffected,on any real level, by the actions of men. Yet this is not the biblical picture of God.

I can quote text after text that clearly shows that man has the ability to cause God grief, sorrow, displeasure and anger. That man has the power to effect God's emotional state.

But how can this be? How can puny man touch God's emotions in such a fashion. Simple - it was God's good pleasure to give men that ability. God ordained that He and man would enter a relationship and that both parties would be affected for good or ill.

The god(s) of the ancient greeks may have been impassible, but not the God of scripture.

[nfactor13131313]

I think that many theological errors like the one you're talking about here come from overemphasizing one aspect to the exclusion of the other.
But it is definitely strange to think of a quality we admire in ourselves, such as being vulnerable emotionally out of our love for others, having the ability to be affected by them, as a sign of weakness in God.
That's not to say that all human qualities translate over to God, of course, but if we admire a quality, why should that admiration be confined to only human displays of that quality?

[Kenny]

Yesterday @ 10:40 PM post located here (http://www.theologyweb.com/forum/showthread.php?s=&postid=89248#post89248)
seer:

Now I knew that would get you attention. But this is a serious issue that goes directly to the unbiblical doctrine of impassibility.

Definition:incapable of suffering or of experiencing pain.

In the theological sense God is unaffected,on any real level, by the actions of men. Yet this is not the biblical picture of God.

I can quote text after text that clearly shows that man has the ability to cause God grief, sorrow, displeasure and anger. That man has the power to effect God's emotional state.

But how can this be? How can puny man touch God's emotions in such a fashion. Simple - it was God's good pleasure to give men that ability. God ordained that He and man would enter a relationship and that both parties would be affected for good or ill.

The god(s) of the ancient greeks may have been impassible, but not the God of scripture.

Actually seer, for once, I agree with you – at least for the most part.

The Bible is full of descriptions of God reacting emotionally to the course of human events. God rejoices in some things, is grieved by others, is angered by still others. One could dismiss this as mere anthropomorphic language – it is anthropomorphic language – but anthropomorphic language is not empty of meaning – it points to genuine divine realities even if the descriptions offered are not literally true. While we should not affirm that God has the same sorts of fickle emotions that we do, these passages do seem to point to some sort of emotional life in the Deity. Of course, the ultimate example of God suffering is Christ on the cross. It will not do, as some theologians have stated, to say that Christ merely suffered in His human nature but not in His divine nature. The person of Christ – which is one and not two – suffered. It is true that the divine nature of Christ could not have been made to suffer by external causes, but the divine person of Christ chose to identify Himself with our human frailties through the mystery of the incarnation and thereby voluntarily involved Himself in human suffering. I also believe that there is a sense in which the Father suffered – not in the same way that Christ did, by dying on the cross, but through His emotional involvement with the fate of His Son.

Now, I don’t think that, strictly speaking, this suffering on the part of God is caused by forces external to God’s self in the same way that our suffering is often caused by forces external to us. God’s suffering is a sovereign suffering. God willingly causes Himself to suffer by choosing to become emotionally involved in the affairs of His creation through a sort of divine sympathy. Just as I can choose, at times, to either sympathize with the sufferings being inflicted on my neighbor or I can choose to be callous and indifferent and this depends somewhat on my active willful decision to become emotionally involved with my neighbor , God can and does actively choose to sympathize with the sufferings of human kind (and, I think, even the rest of His creation – indeed not one sparrow falls to the ground with out the Father taking note of it, and I think that “taking note” here, means more than just knowing about it). The divine suffering is not the result of some human power over God, but God’s sovereign identification with our suffering. Oh the depths and the mercies of God!

In Christ,
Kenny

[seer]

...God willingly causes Himself to suffer by choosing to become emotionally involved in the affairs of His creation through a sort of divine sympathy.

My point exactly. But that destroys the long held Calvinist belief in impassibility. One down and about ten to go. Immutability next? :poke:

[Kenny]

My point exactly. But that destroys the long held Calvinist belief in impassibility. One down and about ten to go. Immutability next? :poke:

Ha! That's not just a classic Calvinist doctrine; it’s a doctrine of classical Christian theism, period. And in our age, which is less constrained by Greek assumptions, many theologians have criticized it – including Calvinist ones. Don’t saddle us Calvinists with an error that every other major Christian tradition has shared. And, God is impassible in the sense that God cannot be forced to suffer by external means, but not in the sense that God cannot suffer voluntarily.

God Bless,
Kenny

[seer]

...Ha! That's not just a classic Calvinist doctrine; it’s a doctrine of classical Christian theism, period.

Let's face it,it had it's major genesis from Augustine through Calvin and other reformers.

...And, God is impassible in the sense that God cannot be forced to suffer by external means, but not in the sense that God cannot suffer voluntarily.

God has chosen to suffer voluntarily by external means - the actions of men...

[Kenny]

Today @ 01:07 AM post located here (http://www.theologyweb.com/forum/showthread.php?s=&postid=89355#post89355)
seer: God has chosen to suffer voluntarily by external means - the actions of men...

Strictly speaking, I do not think that the actions of human beings cause God to suffer. God does suffer on account of the actions of human beings, however, through a self caused sympathy with His creation. This is a subtle difference, but an important one, I think.

In Christ,
Kenny

[seer]

>>>Strictly speaking, I do not think that the actions of human beings cause God to suffer. God does suffer on account of the actions of human beings, however, through a self caused sympathy with His creation. This is a subtle difference, but an important one, I think.

Splitting hairs. Certainly God must allow this to happen. But what does He allow? Men to affect His emotional state.

[Kenny]

Yesterday @ 01:19 AM post located here (http://www.theologyweb.com/forum/showthread.php?s=&postid=89363#post89363)
seer:

>>>Strictly speaking, I do not think that the actions of human beings cause God to suffer. God does suffer on account of the actions of human beings, however, through a self caused sympathy with His creation. This is a subtle difference, but an important one, I think.

Splitting hairs. Certainly God must allow this to happen. But what does He allow? Men to affect His emotional state.

While I do think that it is appropriate to speak, in a loose and metaphorical way, of our actions causing God grief or sorrow or anger or joy, I do not think that the distinction I am insisting on here is merely a matter of splitting hairs.

Ultimately, God cannot become less than who He is. God cannot become such that He is under the power of factors external to His own being. God does not become metaphysically limited, somehow, by His choice to create. Strictly speaking, human beings do not cause any affects in God. But, as a relational, Triune being, God can and does cause effects within Himself. In terms of God’s emotional responses to human actions, those responses are self-caused. God actively, freely and sovereignly sympathizes with His creation, but He does not become metaphysically subjugated to it in the process.

So, I suppose, in the end, I’m still affirming a doctrine of divine impassibility, although a nuanced one – one that allows for a self caused emotional life within God. I think the basic intuition behind the doctrine is still important to preserve, however – that God cannot become at the mercy of causes external to Himself.

God Bless,
Kenny

[seer]

...I think the basic intuition behind the doctrine is still important to preserve, however – that God cannot not become at the mercy of causes external to Himself.

Unless He decides to...

[Kenny]

Today @ 12:32 AM post located here (http://www.theologyweb.com/forum/showthread.php?s=&postid=90484#post90484)
seer:

...I think the basic intuition behind the doctrine is still important to preserve, however – that God cannot not become at the mercy of causes external to Himself.

Unless He decides to...

I don't think He can decide to -- any more than He could decide to stop being Triune. God cannot divest Himself of essential properties of His being because for Him to do so is a logical impossibility.

[geebob]

God actively, freely and sovereignty sympathizes with His creation, but He does not become metaphysically subjugated to it in the process.

I can't say that I see the threat to God's soverignty if it is God who places himself in such a causal relation and if we perhaps suggest further that he could take himself out of it at any time.

[Kenny]

Today @ 12:36 AM post located here (http://www.theologyweb.com/forum/showthread.php?s=&postid=90487#post90487)
geebob: I can't say that I see the threat to God's soverignty if it is God who places himself in such a causal relation and if we perhaps suggest further that he could take himself out of it at any time.

I’m not as concerned about sovereignty here as I am God’s aseity and His uncompromised metaphysical superiority.

[seer]

...God cannot divest Himself of essential properties of His being because for Him to do so is a logical impossibility.

Sorry Ken, then inspite of your earlier agreement, we are simply back to impassibility. And that is not the God of scripture.

[Kenny]

Seer,

I think the model I have presented here is consistent with the Biblical data. I do not deny that God is emotionally responsive to His creation, but affirm it whole heartedly. So all the Biblical data suggesting God has emotions is subsumed by my model. The God of Scripture is also self existent – “I AM” – and He is such that “from Him and to Him and through Him are all things.” No one can give a gift to Him that they might expect something in return. These Biblical affirmations along with, admittedly, some strong philosophical intuitions, lead me to prefer the model I have affirmed on this thread.

In Christ,
Kenny

[seer]

...I think the model I have presented here is consistent with the Biblical data. I do not deny that God is emotionally responsive to His creation, but affirm it whole heartedly.


No,actually you do. You are trying to have it both ways. God is emotionally responsive to His creation, but really He isn't.

...These Biblical affirmations along with, admittedly, some strong philosophical intuitions, lead me to prefer the model I have affirmed on this thread.

I prefer the biblical model of God - you know the one who weeps over lost Israel...

[Kenny]

whoops, double post

[Kenny]

By the way seer,

No being can divest itself of its essential qualities without destroying itself (since those qualities are those which occupy the minimum set of qualities which must be instantiated for that being to exist) – that includes you and me as well as God. Since God exists necessarily, God cannot destroy Himself (because there are no possible worlds where God does not exist), and so God cannot divest Himself of His essential qualities.

Now, of course, you could argue that the quality ‘incapable of being causally affected by external factors’ is not an essential quality of God. Perhaps you could replace this quality with something like ‘incapable of being causally affected by external factors unless having free chosen to be causally affected by external factors.’ And whether such is feasible is what, I think, our debate is about. Saying that God cannot divest Himself of His essential qualities, however, is tautological.

I'm just clearing up some potential philosophical confusion here.

In Christ,
Kenny

[seer]

'incapable of being causally affected by external factors unless having free chosen to be causally affected by external factors.'

Bingo - that is the God of scripture. You know the one who weeps over lost Israel...

...Saying that God cannot divest Himself of His essential qualities, however, is tautological.

Essential qualities like compassion, sorrow, anger, love...?

[Kenny]

Today @ 01:10 AM post located here (http://www.theologyweb.com/forum/showthread.php?s=&postid=90511#post90511)
seer: No,actually you do. You are trying to have it both ways. God is emotionally responsive to His creation, but really He isn't.

How so? I think I have explained how God can be emotionally responsive to His creation without being causally affected by it. We see glimpses of this in our own experience in situations where we actively choose to be sympathetic with the plight of others even when that plight has no direct causal baring on ourselves.


I prefer the biblical model of God - you know the one who weeps over lost Israel...

I think my model of God is consistently Biblical, and I think God weeps over lost Israel too, and over the sin and sufferings of all His creation – even over animal sufferings. I believe that God is passionately involved in all that He has created. I also believe that He is supremely joyful because He knows His good purposes are coming to fruition. But, this is all by God’s doing and God’s initiative, not by some causal imposition from without. Indeed, who has given a gift to Him in order to receive something in return, for from Him and to Him and through Him are all things.

In Christ,
Kenny

[Kenny]

Today @ 01:29 AM post located here (http://www.theologyweb.com/forum/showthread.php?s=&postid=90527#post90527)
seer: Essential qualities like compassion, sorrow, anger, love...?

God is essentially loving and I think being essentially compassionate is a corollary of that. He is also essentially holy. He’s not essentially angry (because He’s not angry unless there’s something to be angry about). He is also not essentially sorrowful (because He will not be sorrowful unless there’s something to be sorrowful about). God’s holiness and love may entail that God would necessarily react with sorrow and anger to certain situations should they come about, however. Of course, no such situations will come about unless God wills to allow them to.

In Christ,
Kenny

[seer]

...God’s holiness and love may entail that God would necessarily react with sorrow and anger to certain situations should they come about, however. Of course, no such situations will come about unless God wills to allow them to.

Ok,I'am good with that...

[doogieduff]

Yesterday @ 03:40 PM post located here (http://www.theologyweb.com/forum/showthread.php?s=&postid=89248#post89248)
seer:

Now I knew that would get you attention. But this is a serious issue that goes directly to the unbiblical doctrine of impassibility.

Definition:incapable of suffering or of experiencing pain.

In the theological sense God is unaffected,on any real level, by the actions of men. Yet this is not the biblical picture of God.

I can quote text after text that clearly shows that man has the ability to cause God grief, sorrow, displeasure and anger. That man has the power to effect God's emotional state.

But how can this be? How can puny man touch God's emotions in such a fashion. Simple - it was God's good pleasure to give men that ability. God ordained that He and man would enter a relationship and that both parties would be affected for good or ill.

The god(s) of the ancient greeks may have been impassible, but not the God of scripture.

Seer,

I fully agree that this destroys Calvinism, but I also think this destroys Arminianism as well. How does God grieve that He made man, if He knew before He made them, that they would fail? How does God regret setting up Saul as King, when He Himself set him up knowing He would fail? It just doesn't fit...

[seer]

...How does God grieve that He made man, if He knew before He made them, that they would fail? How does God regret setting up Saul as King, when He Himself set him up knowing He would fail? It just doesn't fit...

I knew my kids would fail before they were born, that did not lessen the grief when they actually did.

[doogieduff]

Today @ 07:01 PM post located here (http://www.theologyweb.com/forum/showthread.php?s=&postid=90574#post90574)
seer:

...How does God grieve that He made man, if He knew before He made them, that they would fail? How does God regret setting up Saul as King, when He Himself set him up knowing He would fail? It just doesn't fit...

I knew my kids would fail before they were born, that did not lessen the grief when they actually did.

Wow, I expected something way more intelligent than this. Are you serious? Do you think this answers it? Look at how flawed your reasoning is. Why did you know your kids would fail? Well, we all sin and are born with sin. Adam and Eve were perfect beings, and God had no past dealings with mankind to compare to. Weak dude!

Also, you conveniently didn't answer the fact that God handpicked and chose Saul to be king, yet still regretted His decision. How do you explain that?

[doogieduff]

BTW seer, please explain to me how God foreknew HIS future decisions before the foundation of the earth before He ever had a chance to make them while responding to man.

[Kenny]

[i]Today @ 01:54 AM post located here (http://www.theologyweb.com/forum/showthread.php?s=&postid=90565#post90565)
doogieduff: I fully agree that this destroys Calvinism

Actually, it doesn’t. I’m a Calvinist and I believe God has emotions and is grieved by some of the actions of humanity.


How does God grieve that He made man, if He knew before He made them, that they would fail?

Simple. Foreseen and planned results can still be sorrowful results. It may grieve a parent to see a child suffer under a painful medical procedure even if she has knowingly inflicted it on the child for a greater good. It may grieve that parent that something she is responsible for resulted in such misery, even though she would have done it all over again.


How does God regret setting up Saul as King, when He Himself set him up knowing He would fail? It just doesn't fit...

He regrets the immediate effects of His decision (which He foresaw), because those effects, considered in themselves, are bad. That doesn’t mean that He is second guessing the decision itself -- a decision which fits the scheme of His larger providential plan.

In Christ,
Kenny

[mickiel]

I think it is a serious mistake in reasoning to equate or compare Gods emotion to human emotions. God is not human, therefore his emotion cannot be compared to that of a human. In example, Gods jealously is nothing like human jealously. Human jealously can be sinful, selfish, evil and uncontrolable. God is none of those things. Gods love cannot dare be compared to that of a human, Gods love is pure, no humans love is pure.

Often when the bible speaks of Gods emotion, it is really being discriptive of what God will do. The word says God is love, well God is not a giant ball of icky goo emotion, it is just being descriptive of what God will do, he will love and continue to love. When it speaks of Gods anger or wrath, it is NOT describing Gods nature or his actual being. God is NOT a being of anger, it is just describing something God will do temporarily, and then do no more. God does not hold anger, he will dispose of it. The emotions of God are nothing like human emotion.

[seer]

...Often when the bible speaks of Gods emotion, it is really being discriptive of what God will do.

That is just silly. What does God sorrow or grief tell us ?

[Kenny]

Today @ 08:47 AM post located here (http://www.theologyweb.com/forum/showthread.php?s=&postid=90764#post90764)
mickiel: I think it is a serious mistake in reasoning to equate or compare Gods emotion to human emotions. God is not human, therefore his emotion cannot be compared to that of a human.

I think that you are making a mistake that I often see theologians make. Sometimes theologians stress the point that all language about God is analogical (which it all is, to some extent), that they forget that analogical statements must also have some univocal content in order to be meaningful. In other words, analogies between two situations only work when there is something that both situations genuinely have in common. If God’s emotions cannot be compared to human emotions in any sense, then it is simply meaningless to speak of God having emotions. But, then all the Scripture which speaks in such a manner would be pure nonsense.


In example, Gods jealously is nothing like human jealously. Human jealously can be sinful, selfish, evil and uncontrolable.

“Nothing like” human jealousy? Of course God’s jealousy is not sinful nor selfish nor uncontrollable. But human jealousy also includes within it a passionate desire that the exclusive boundaries of a relationship be maintained. God’s jealousy is like that. Jealousy is not necessarily sinful even in a human context. There’s a certain amount of healthy jealousy that I have for my wife and that she has for me.


Gods love cannot dare be compared to that of a human, Gods love is pure, no humans love is pure.

True, no human love is pure, but human love was pure (before the fall) and will be pure once again (when the Kingdom comes). Insofar as human love still manifests the characteristics it had before the fall, it is like God’s love. Otherwise, it’s simply meaningless to say that God is love.


Often when the bible speaks of Gods emotion, it is really being discriptive of what God will do.

True, but it’s also describing the motivations of God’s heart – why God does what He does.


The word says God is love, well God is not a giant ball of icky goo emotion, it is just being descriptive of what God will do, he will love and continue to love.

I agree that God’s love is not a “giant ball of icky goo emotion” in the sense of it being a trivial sentimentality, but it does include an emotional delight in the beloved.


When it speaks of Gods anger or wrath, it is NOT describing Gods nature or his actual being. God is NOT a being of anger, it is just describing something God will do temporarily, and then do no more. God does not hold anger, he will dispose of it.

Certainly God is not wrath as God is love. Love was manifest in God’s being among the members of the Trinity before all ages and before time and the world began. But God is holy, and because God is holy, He despises evil with a passion, wherever evil should arise.


The emotions of God are nothing like human emotion.

Again, if that were true, it would render all the Biblical language concerning God having emotion meaningless.

In Christ,
Kenny

[doogieduff]

Today @ 01:14 AM post located here (http://www.theologyweb.com/forum/showthread.php?s=&postid=90755#post90755)
Kenny:



Actually, it doesn’t. I’m a Calvinist and I believe God has emotions and is grieved by some of the actions of humanity.



Simple. Foreseen and planned results can still be sorrowful results. It may grieve a parent to see a child suffer under a painful medical procedure even if she has knowingly inflicted it on the child for a greater good. It may grieve that parent that something she is responsible for resulted in such misery, even though she would have done it all over again.



He regrets the immediate effects of His decision (which He foresaw), because those effects, considered in themselves, are bad. That doesn’t mean that He is second guessing the decision itself -- a decision which fits the scheme of His larger providential plan.

In Christ,
Kenny

Did God predestine His emotion or was it a real response to man's action?

[doogieduff]

Yesterday @ 10:16 PM post located here (http://www.theologyweb.com/forum/showthread.php?s=&postid=90662#post90662)
doogieduff:

BTW seer, please explain to me how God foreknew HIS future decisions before the foundation of the earth before He ever had a chance to make them while responding to man.

Seer, I'm really anxious to hear your response to this!

[Kenny]

Today @ 07:04 PM post located here (http://www.theologyweb.com/forum/showthread.php?s=&postid=91188#post91188)
doogieduff: Did God predestine His emotion or was it a real response to man's action?

Yes.

[doogieduff]

Today @ 12:59 PM post located here (http://www.theologyweb.com/forum/showthread.php?s=&postid=91218#post91218)
Kenny:



Yes.

So God predestined the man's action, then predestined His own reaction to that? When you see someone crying on a movie, is that real emotion? Because that's what you're saying here. God has a script, where He "scripts" man to do something, then "scripts "Himslef" to react. Well, that's not real emotion, I must say. On the movie "Galaxy Quest", the humans are trying to describe television acting to the aliens, and the aliens only response is that they are "liars" because they are acting something which isn't true.

BTW, where is biblically that God predestines His emotions? Oh wait! It's not there!

[Kenny]

Today @ 08:07 PM post located here (http://www.theologyweb.com/forum/showthread.php?s=&postid=91226#post91226)
doogieduff:

[quote]When you see someone crying on a movie, is that real emotion?

No. Characters in a movie do not exist as actual persons. The have no will, emotion, or causal powers. But, we are real persons, with wills, emotions, and causal powers. I fail to see the point.


Because that's what you're saying here. God has a script, where He "scripts" man to do something, then "scripts "Himslef" to react.

I don’t think this analogy holds here. The author of a script is the sole, immediate, and direct cause of all that happens in the storyline. The characters of the script have no genuine causal ability. Such is not true of our world. God’s will is, in some sense, causally determinative of all that occurs, but it is not the sole causal factor involved. God works through both primary and secondary causes to accomplish His plans. Among the secondary causes which God uses are the free choices He knows that His creatures will make.

Now, just because God plans for those choices and knows that they will occur does not mean that God’s emotional reactions to them are not genuine. A parent may know well and good that a rebellious child is not going to head her advice. In confronting the child (because she feels that she must), there is a sense in which she is choosing to bring about a situation in which she knows (at least with reasonable certainty) the child will make a rebellious decision to spurn her advice, and so she is causing a state of affairs in which such a rebellious decision will occur and she is planning for that state of affairs to occur. But, it still grieves her when that state of affairs occurs.


On the movie "Galaxy Quest", the humans are trying to describe television acting to the aliens, and the aliens only response is that they are "liars" because they are acting something which isn't true.

God isn’t acting. His emotions are a genuine heartfelt response to the free actions of His creatures


BTW, where is biblically that God predestines His emotions? Oh wait! It's not there!

Well, if the Bible teaches that God providentially guides all things with perfect foreknowledge, that God knows Himself perfectly, and that nothing occurs outside of the scope of His sovereign will or which He hasn’t in some sense foreordained (and as a Calvinist, I believe it does), and it teaches that God reacts emotionally to the events He has foreordained (which I also believe it does), then it is an inescapable conclusion that God foreordains His own emotional responses to those events.

I could throw up all the usual Calvinist proof texts for all these propositions. You could then give me your proof texts and tell me what’s wrong with my interpretation of my proof texts. I could then respond by doing likewise and telling you why your refutation of my interpretation of my proof texts is faulty… But, I doubt such would be fruitful, and it would also be off topic. There’s plenty of other threads to argue over poof texts around here.

God Bless,
Kenny

[doogieduff]

Today @ 03:13 PM post located here (http://www.theologyweb.com/forum/showthread.php?s=&postid=91353#post91353)
Kenny:



No. Characters in a movie do not exist as actual persons. The have no will, emotion, or causal powers. But, we are real persons, with wills, emotions, and causal powers. I fail to see the point.

I'm not talking cartoons, I'm talking "movies." Tom Cruise, for example, is a real human being, and played parts in movies. He is an actual person, and his emotion in those movies is fake!




I don’t this analogy holds here. The author of a script is the sole, immediate, and direct cause of all that happens in the storyline.

From what I've been taught, this is calvinism.


The characters of the script have no genuine causal ability. Such is not true of our world. [/quote[

I thought all my actions were predestined by God? This is also what I've been taught by calvinism.

[quote]
God’s will is, in some sense, causally determinative of all that occurs, but it is not the sole causal factor involved. God works through both primary and secondary causes to accomplish His plans. Among the secondary causes which God uses are the free choices He knows that His creatures will make.

Does HE know what choice they will make or does He predestine it?



Now, just because God plans for those choices and knows that they will occur does not mean that God’s emotional reactions to them are not genuine. A parent may know well and good that a rebellious child is not going to head her advice. In confronting the child (because she feels that she must), there is a sense in which she is choosing to bring about a situation in which she knows (at least with reasonable certainty) the child will make a rebellious decision to spurn her advice, and so she is causing a state of affairs in which such a rebellious decision will occur and she is planning for that state of affairs to occur. But, it still grieves her when that state of affairs occurs.

These analogies just don't work, sorry. Complete foreordination before the foundation of the world would not result in this. A real analogy would have the parent predestining the action of the child, and then predestining the grievance.



God isn’t acting. His emotions are a genuine heartfelt response to the free actions of His creatures

Does HE grieve when He predestines them to do bad, or when it actually happens?

[Kenny]

I'm not talking cartoons, I'm talking "movies." Tom Cruise, for example, is a real human being, and played parts in movies. He is an actual person, and his emotion in those movies is fake!

Well, his emotions aren’t necessarily fake. Sometimes actors become so wrapped up and so identified with their characters, that they feel real emotions concerning what happens to them. Sometimes when I’m watching a realistic and very emotionally powerful movie, I find myself having the resist a natural inclination to pray for the characters. An author of a story may very well see the characters of her imagination take on a life of their own and may find herself deeply sympathizing with the plights those characters (in fact, I think this is what must have been the case in the most powerful works of fiction I have read or watched, else how could the author have portrayed the sufferings of the characters so realistically and so powerfully). These human reactions to stories and the emotional involvement of the human author or actor in the creative process may very well mirror something of the image of God in us and provide a window into the nature of God’s creative activity.

That being said, I don’t think the author/script, actor/character, analogy is the best one to use in this case, but even this analogy is not entirely without pointers to a genuine emotional involvement on the part of God with respect to the world.


I don’t this analogy holds here. The author of a script is the sole, immediate, and direct cause of all that happens in the storyline.

From what I've been taught, this is calvinism.

No, only a simplified caricature of it. Calvinists sometimes use an author/story analogy to describe the God/world relationship (but then again, I’ve heard Arminians use this analogy also), but like all analogies, this one has its limitations. It should be noted that there is a range of emphasis on God’s sovereignty and the degree to which other causal factors play a role in the world within Calvinism (Calvinism is not the simple, monolithic reality that Arminians often seem to assume it is), but I am aware of no sophisticated Calvinist who believes that God is the sole, immediate, and direct cause of all that occurs in the world. Certainly, Calvin himself did not teach this (not that it really matters, per say, what Calvin taught – only that what he taught was faithful to the Scriptures).


Does HE know what choice they will make or does He predestine it?

The exact way in which the relationship between human decisions and God’s foreordination is conceptualized differs from Calvinist to Calvinist, though most would hold to some version of compatiblism. My take would be that God, in His natural knowledge (which logically precedes God’s creative decree), knows exactly what we would freely do in any given circumstance because we freely act in accordance with our character which is a function of our individual essences and our total life circumstances – and God knows our essences exhaustively and all possible total life circumstances in which we might be placed. As part of this knowledge, God also knows how we would freely respond in the presence of His grace or lack thereof. God predestines our free choices by decreeing to place us in specific circumstances and by decreeing the measure of grace He will either give or withhold from us, but we ourselves are the direct cause of those choices, not God.


These analogies just don't work, sorry. Complete foreordination before the foundation of the world would not result in this. A real analogy would have the parent predestining the action of the child, and then predestining the grievance.

Well of course the analogy has limitations (all analogies do), but the point of my analogy is that the parent chose to actualize a situation in which she knew that her child would rebel and in which she knew that she would be grieved. In a sense, by choosing to actualize such a situation with knowledge of what would occur, the parent did predestine the action of the child and her own grievance. Keep in mind the above discussion that predestination does not entail that God is the sole or direct cause of all that occurs.


Does HE grieve when He predestines them to do bad, or when it actually happens?

Since I hold a view of divine timelessness and an accompanying B theory of time, I believe that God’s foreordination of an event and the existence of that event come into being simultaneously with only logical priorities involved. I think that it likely grieves God in one way to foreordain a sinful action (as it might grieve a parent to set up an appointment to put her child through a painful medical procedure) and that it grieves God in another way to see that action come about (as it grieves the parent to see her child endure that procedure), but that these two things come into being simultaneously. But, I’m not dogmatic about my view of divine timelessness (I think Scripture underdetermines our view of the relationship between God and time). I suppose if an A theory of time is correct, then God would be grieved in the first way I described at the time of the foreordination of the sinful act and in the second way at the time of the occurrence of the sinful act.

In Christ,
Kenny

[bar Jonah]

05-06-2003 @ 06:07 PM post located here (http://www.theologyweb.com/forum/showthread.php?s=&postid=89355#post89355)
seer:

...Ha! That's not just a classic Calvinist doctrine; it’s a doctrine of classical Christian theism, period.

Let's face it,it had it's major genesis from Augustine through Calvin and other reformers.

...And, God is impassible in the sense that God cannot be forced to suffer by external means, but not in the sense that God cannot suffer voluntarily.

God has chosen to suffer voluntarily by external means - the actions of men...
I recall a quote from Augustine where he stated that anyone who believes God actually loves or experiences anger or sadness or other emotions... must have the mind of a child.

Anyone have that quote?

[Kenny]

Yesterday @ 11:52 PM post located here (http://www.theologyweb.com/forum/showthread.php?s=&postid=95582#post95582)
RightIdea:


I recall a quote from Augustine where he stated that anyone who believes God actually loves or experiences anger or sadness or other emotions... must have the mind of a child.

Anyone have that quote?

No, but it wouldn't surprise me. I like Augustine a great deal, but He was also wrong about a great many things and He was overly influenced by Greek philosophy (of course, we are no doubt overly influenced by the philosophies of our culture).

And I suppose, if Jesus' words are any indication, having the mind of a child isn't necessarily such a bad thing.

In Christ,
Kenny