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Theists Discuss the Unmoved Mover.

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  • #61
    Originally posted by Apologiaphoenix View Post
    Brum. Simple question. Do you think that the nature of the Godhead changed in the incarnation?
    The nature, perhaps not. I'm not sure a "nature" can change, at least not under my view of what change is. Under a Thomistic view it would seem to be necessary to say both yes and no. Addition is a form of change, and Jesus added human nature to the divine nature. Adding something to something else changes both things unless they are identical to begin with. Even then it changes in amount. The procession of The Son and Spirit would also seem to be a form of Thomistic change, even if it is happening from eternity past.

    A person can change, and Jesus, a person of the Trinity, clearly does change. You pretty much need to accept that unless you want to say Jesus had both a human person and divine person as part of Himself.

    A simple question Nick, does your human nature change when your emotions do?

    As for Jacob, yes. Jacob is blessing his sons, but the ancients would also take this as prophetic and from God.
    Your understanding of the blessing would make it seem as if God was either deceived Himself, or in on the deception of Isaac with regards to Jacob. Isaac was clearly intending to bless Esau. God clearly knew that much, why did the blessing go to Isaac? Yes, it's a different blessing, but it's a blessing in the same way Jacob blesses his own sons. The principles should be the same.

    I've seen a lot of claims about what "the ancients" would believe, that are on groundless on closer examination. So, citation please.

    Even if you're right about ancient views, it doesn't mean it is unconditional even if it is a prophecy from God. Even the promise to David seems to have been conditional. David being one of the few who fulfilled such conditions.

    And with demons, yes. They do gain something from it. They gain that the people that God loves suffers and they at least get to see that. Your suffering is something they see as a good in their eyes. They do it because they want to see you suffer because that in some way is good to them. It's definitely not good, but they perceive it that way.
    So they are sadists that derive pleasure from others suffering? Strange considering Thomas Aquinas says they have no "passions", and thus have no anger or other emotions. He obviously never dealt with one face to face.

    Source: Summa Theologica First Part: Question 63

    Reply to Objection 4: Mortal sin occurs in two ways in the act of free-will. First, when something evil is chosen; as man sins by choosing adultery, which is evil of itself. Such sin always comes of ignorance or error; otherwise what is evil would never be chosen as good. The adulterer errs in the particular, choosing this delight of an inordinate act as something good to be performed now, from the inclination of passion or of habit; even though he does not err in his universal judgment, but retains a right opinion in this respect. In this way there can be no sin in the angel; because there are no passions in the angels to fetter reason or intellect, as is manifest from what has been said above (Question [59], Article [4]); nor, again, could any habit inclining to sin precede their first sin. In another way sin comes of free-will by choosing something good in itself, but not according to proper measure or rule; so that the defect which induces sin is only on the part of the choice which is not properly regulated, but not on the part of the thing chosen; as if one were to pray, without heeding the order established by the Church. Such a sin does not presuppose ignorance, but merely absence of consideration of the things which ought to be considered. In this way the angel sinned, by seeking his own good, from his own free-will, insubordinately to the rule of the Divine will

    © Copyright Original Source



    The first part I underlined up there would also mean no one would ever choose adultery if they knew it was wrong. This is so far out of touch with reality as to be mind boggling. The third part I underlined certainly seems to contradict itself. Ignoring something that should be considered might not be "ignorance" per se, but it's certainly stupidity. Stupidity is actually worse than ignorance. If they have no emotions to fetter their reason or intellect how can they be so stupid?

    The more I read of Thomas Aquinas and his followers the less coherent his/their system seems.

    You asked for Christians who were espousing Open Theism earlier, so I thought you would be interested in knowing of
    an early proponent of Divine Passibility in Lactantius. I found it while looking for reviews of your book recommendation since i didn't have access to the book itself. My library isn't very good, and even if it was I have issues with my immune system, so can't really use books from there.

    I found no less than Edward Feser arguing against your emotionless version of impassibility. I think I'll take his definition of impassibility over yours Nick.

    Elsewhere I while looking up arguments for and against impassibility I found this work arguing against it.

    It is clear that Grudem equates divine impassibility with the idea of a God who lacks emotions. Meisinger agrees with Grudem’s thesis writing: “Some theologians teach the impassibility of God, which if true means that God does not have emotion, or passion.” Meisinger then attacks this idea showing from the biblical data that God does indeed have emotion. The problems of this approach are straight forward. Any self-respecting classical theologian would not agree with this definition of impassibility.

    He seems like the kind who can argue for impassibility better than one who holds to it. In fact, I thought he was doing just that as I was reading his work.

    You like citations a lot, so head to the bottom for his list of works he uses to support his work.

    You may be enamored by Thomas Aquinas and Aristotle, but I'm not. I used to find the Unmoved Mover argument convincing, and once used it in the past myself. Like I said earlier, the more I read and study the system, the more incoherent it seems to be.
    Last edited by Cerebrum123; 07-09-2018, 07:42 AM.

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    • #62
      Originally posted by Apologiaphoenix View Post
      Not at all. The nature of the Godhead never once changed. This has been what the Christian church has said from the beginning.
      I would say that's completely unproven actually. After all, I can contend that the verses that say God does not change are merely anthropomorphisms and contend that the Incarnation disproves your theory. Saying it over and over without proof doesn't make it so...and yes, saying that the second person of the Trinity unwent change, but there was no change is special pleading.

      As for the appeal to tradition, surely you realize that's not at all convincing to many protestants...after all, I doubt you subscribe to the praying to dead people for help, (Virgin Mary, Saints et. al.), venerating icons, and you probably don't think it's necessary to go into a confessional and confess your sins to a priest for forgiveness... and so on and. And before you go there, no, that doesn't mean we throw all tradition out, but we do carefully evaluate them and throw out the ones that are unscripturally wrong. This could certainly be one of those cases.

      Not at all. All God does, He does out of love. You cannot pull on emotional heartstrings with Him. You can't make Him feel better or more loving or make Him feel sad.
      Or so you keep saying...the Bible says that God has emotions, and that you can move God to act on your behalf. You've yet to show from Scripture your reading is the correct one.

      I think the error is in 8. God's knowledge of my doing it is not the cause of my doing it. God knew from eternity past what I would freely choose to do.
      Where's your proof? You can't just ignore logic just because it doesn't fit your theology. Logical impossibilities are just as impossible for God as they are for ordinary humans. If God eternally knows every event in the future, it is logically impossible, and therefore by default, eternally impossible for the the future to be other than it is.

      C.S. Lewis said it very well in "The Problem of Pain"
      “His Omnipotence means power to do all that is intrinsically possible, not to do the intrinsically impossible. You may attribute miracles to Him, but not nonsense. This is no limit to His power. If you choose to say, ‘God can give a creature free will and at the same time withhold free will from it,’ you have not succeeded in saying anything about God: meaningless combinations of words do not suddenly acquire meaning simply because we prefix to them the two other words, 'God can.' It remains true that all things are possible with God: the intrinsic impossibilities are not things but nonentities. It is no more possible for God than for the weakest of His creatures to carry out both of two mutually exclusive alternatives; not because His power meets an obstacle, but because nonsense remains nonsense even when we talk it about God.”


      God's knowing is not the same as our humanistic knowing. If indeed God "KNOWS" something, then by the CV, eternal now God, that's the way it IS, whether or not He directly caused it to be that way. Therefore, logic dictates that IF God know a future event, that event must occur, whether or not He directly caused it. That's still predestination, therefore your view is all future is destiny. We may think we are exercising free will but it would be only an illusion of freedom because, now we see that since God knows it and therefore, it must occur as God see's it and not be just a possibility, the God did indeed cause the event. If God is not the cause of the event, that results in a form of naturalism...or at best, deism does it not? You've now locked God into a system over which He does not have freedom to act. For what God knows is going to happen, happens, and even God can't change it. My understanding of the sovereignty of God says that he does have the freedom to act and/or respond.

      Maybe you would have better luck showing us the Biblical justification of God in the eternal now/timeless existence.

      King Ahab had Ben-Hadad in his hands and let him live. God said Ahab set free a man that God said should die.
      Right...so, a man, at least temporarily, (Ben-Hadad did eventually die of course), defeated God's will.

      As for sovereignty, it means that nothing happens without God allowing it to happen. All things pass through His hand. As for free-will, I don't see it spelled out just like I don't see God causing all things being taught.
      Do you think there is ever a situation where God could not act even if he wanted to?

      I would mean from the incarnation on. If I said otherwise, that was a slip on my part. Jesus did take on humanity at one point.
      Ok, no problem...just wanted to make sure!

      Psalm 139 has it that all our days are written in His book before we come to be.
      Of the verses that seem to support your view, this one is probably one of the worst verses you could have cited. First problem we have is the genre, which is poetry, hyperbole is common as I know you know...I've seen you make the exact same point before. Second, Psalm 139 is well known for it's ackward and ambiguous phrasing. It's been interpreted several different ways. KJV makes no reference at all to "knowing the days" instead renders "knowing all my members". The Jewish Bible version JPS also renders it like the KJV. Here's a link to an excellent paper that is well worth the read. It talks at length about the problems with this verse: http://www.crivoice.org/pdf/psa139.pdf

      Fair disclosure, Dr. Dennis Bratcher is an Open Theist. I didn't realize it until I dug into his creds. He's a retired professor of O.T. though, so he's no slouch.

      In the concluding paragraphs of the paper he summarizes it like this:

      That all suggests that however the last part of verse 16 is to be read, it is not about predestination nor is it about God knowing the future. Both of those ideas would be to violate the thrust of the rest of the Psalm. Here, the psalmist can lay himself open before God and pray for God's guidance in his life, not because God knows what will happen or because God has predetermined what will happen, but because God knows the psalmist better then he knows himself.


      Lastly, even if we were to take the verse literally and translated in the most favorable way your view sees it, (which I don't agree) and concede that the exact length of our life is set before we are born, does not automatically imply that all of our life's decisions are set.

      Isaiah challenges the false gods of his day by saying God alone knows the future.
      Better verse, but, it's not without holes. Yahweh, in order to distinguish himself from the dead idols that Israel was worshiping, displayed his ability to do what dead idols cannot do: namely, control the flow of history. So, when the Lord says, “My purpose shall stand, and I will fulfill my intention,” he can rightly declare what he will bring about, “from ancient times things not yet done.” For God to have this foreknowledge he only has to know his own purposes and intentions. Unless one is willing to believe that everything throughout world history (including all evil) reflects God’s purposes and intentions, this verse can’t be used to defend the notion that everything throughout world history is foreknown.

      Not at all. God is allowing Moses to rise up to be the intercessor. Again, I have the same problem. Moses obviously knew something God didn't then.
      No, you're correct, God is allowing Moses to rise up and be the intercessor. I haven't disputed that actually. But, since God cannot be moved, God does not let his "heartstrings" be tugged, then Moses really does nothing in your view. Also, it does not necessarily follow that for Moses to plead with God to not destroy Israel, that he had to know something God did not. It's obvious you're not a parent yet. I have often said no, with my children "reminding" me of something I said earlier. But, I knew exactly what I had said and said no anyway regardless. If they successfully changed my mind, it wasn't always because I forgot something, or didn't know something. Sometimes, no is no.

      Am I to say also that when the text says "God remembered Noah" that God had a memory slip and forgot about the flood going on?
      Honestly, I'm getting tired of the reducio ad absurdem arguments. Seriously. You're not discussing with a 15 y.o. new atheist. Context AP, context. It's what good exegesis is. It pretty much means the same to you as it does to me.

      So God didn't know about the present? He didn't know about the conditions of the people of Israel? He had to do a search to gain knowledge? Again, what all else doe the open theist God not know about? It looks like He doesn't just not know the future, but He doesn't know the past either.
      Occam's Razor. The easy answer for OV is, God had several people in mind he thought would step up, but they all refused the call...just as King Ahab did with Ben-Hadad. You yourself posted this example earlier that there are cases from Scripture where God's will was thwarted. This is simply one of those cases. God searched, no one answered. Unless you think Scripture is again lying or mistaken and that God didn't actually search even though he clearly says he did...

      And I say the same thing again. Tertullian believed in spiritual matter for instance. Most of the Greeks could at the time to some extent. There are far more references to God having a body than to God being spirit.
      Ok...God has a body made out of spiritual matter...now where does the goalpost have to shift since the verses then are no longer anthropomorphisms?

      Which verse do you have in mind?
      Same as you (I think), Is 46:9-11. I've already commented above on it. Unless you're taking the position of the Reformed/Determinist view which would posit God is declaring everything is set in stone and he is going to accomplish it, you have to concede God is simply declaring what he plans to sovereignly do, not divinely know of all of the future events.

      It shows that God does offer conditional promises and when we meet the conditions, that's what happens. It's like the idea of how God tells the people that offering their children in the fire didn't even enter His mind. God really hadn't conceived of that? He didn't know despite pagans doing that?
      I agree that God does indeed offer conditional promises, Moses in Ex 32 is not an example of this. Again, in your view, God would have already "foreknown" that he was not going to destroy the Israelites so, God would have at the very least have been disingenuous when making that statment to Moses. This also makes the Bible's teaching that God "changed his mind" about the whole matter inaccurate as well. If God’s stated intentions and Scripture’s teaching are true, it is hard to avoid the conclusion that in God’s mind it was not already eternally settled in regards to the ultimate fate of Israel at this time.
      So, AFAICS, the idea of God foreknowing he will change his mind is self-contradicting. It's a bit silly to say that God has an eternally unchanging mind which knows that he will someday change his mind. If God’s mind really changes, it can’t really be eternally unchanging. If it’s really eternally unchanging, he can’t really change it. Think it through AP, don't hand wave it again...

      To allow Abraham to demonstrate His faithfulness. He is taking the child of the promise believing that the promise will somehow come true. Abraham could be said to be the first believer in resurrection.
      In your view, God already knows exactly what Abrahams is going to do, there's really no need for God to test him in order to know his faithfulness...yet, God says that now HE knows that Abraham trusts God. Maybe, just maybe, God doesn't know what our actions will necessarily be until they actually occur. Again, we have God stating and the Bible teaching God making "disingenuous" statements about the future. Unless there was some doubt that Abraham would actually go through with it, God's statement that "...now I know..." was indeed an erroneous statement. The only reason to hold to this being a test for Abraham to know about himself, and not God to know is to read your theology into the text and not accepting the straightforward meaning of it...namely God tests people to find out how they will resolve their character.

      Why cause pain and destruction? Because there is some good that they want. The only reason people do anything is because they want some good. They can know their actions are wrong, but they do them to get something they think is good. We do this all the time. Consider a young man who struggles with porn. He knows it's evil, but he wants to look and does so because he wants something he does perceive as a good. He wants to see the beauty of woman. Wanting to see a woman's beauty is not bad. How one goes about it is bad.

      What causes us to move is the good as a final cause. We all seek the good and thus we all move in seeking the good. As for contingency, Aquinas's third way is from contingency. The medievals did debate if God created the world freely or not. I have no firm opinion on the matter. Aquinas held to ex nihilo creation, but he did say that has to be known from Scripture. If we had just reason alone, we could not know that.
      Again, Isaiah 5:20, Woe to them that call evil good and good evil. That's what your are subscribing to AP. If as you say that what causes us to move is the good as the final cause, then when someone does evil thinking it's good, they are moved to do this evil by God. That's the natural conclusion to your view. Sure, you can dream up scenarios that seem to be someone "wanting good", but that's not really good from any biblical standpoint whatsoever. But, that doesn't make it good just because you say the words. Evil is evil regardless of what it's called. Regardless of the supposed motivation behind it...and also, sometimes, it's just not so that someone wanted "good" out of something.

      Meh. Maybe. The look at OV is not a priority and I have been focusing more on EO stuff and Catholicism stuff.
      yeah, that's pretty obvious from the defenses you're throwing out here.
      Last edited by Littlejoe; 07-10-2018, 06:25 PM.
      "What has the Church gained if it is popular, but there is no conviction, no repentance, no power?" - A.W. Tozer

      "... there are two parties in Washington, the stupid party and the evil party, who occasionally get together and do something both stupid and evil, and this is called bipartisanship." - Everett Dirksen

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      • #63
        Hey guys. I thought I could really keep up, but the time isn't there with library books I have to read for Allie.

        How about we wait until I get some books on open theism and then we can discuss it then? I could quite likely do an interview on my show and since it's a Christian topic I don't agree with, it could be a debate which would foster better discussion. I've tried before, but I haven't found a good opponent yet who would be willing to debate Open Theism.

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        • #64
          Originally posted by Apologiaphoenix View Post
          Hey guys. I thought I could really keep up, but the time isn't there with library books I have to read for Allie.

          How about we wait until I get some books on open theism and then we can discuss it then? I could quite likely do an interview on my show and since it's a Christian topic I don't agree with, it could be a debate which would foster better discussion. I've tried before, but I haven't found a good opponent yet who would be willing to debate Open Theism.
          No problem. Thanks for the discussion.

          You shouldn't go into a study of what is considered by many a valid theology with the already decided opinion that it's wrong. When I encounter and study something, I at least try to stay open minded. I reject most of them after a thorough study but not before hand. I didn't start out an Open Theist. I actually came to the realization on my own after years of study of what the Bible actually said. As a matter of fact, I didn't even know there was a theology like that out there until many years later.
          "What has the Church gained if it is popular, but there is no conviction, no repentance, no power?" - A.W. Tozer

          "... there are two parties in Washington, the stupid party and the evil party, who occasionally get together and do something both stupid and evil, and this is called bipartisanship." - Everett Dirksen

          Comment


          • #65
            Originally posted by Littlejoe View Post
            . . . I didn't start out an Open Theist. I actually came to the realization on my own after years of study of what the Bible actually said. . . .
            I am not an open theist. But I hold the view that what is the basis of open theism are the responses of the pre-incarnate eternal Son of God (John 1:2, 3, 18 etc.).

            ". . . man is become as one of Us, to know good and evil: . . . " -- Genesis 3:22.

            ". . . for now I know that thou fearest God, seeing thou hast not withheld thy son, thine only son from Me. . . ." -- Genesis 12:22.

            etc.
            . . . the gospel of Christ: for it is the power of God unto salvation to every one that believeth; . . . -- Romans 1:16 KJV

            . . . that Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures; And that he was buried, and that he rose again the third day according to the scriptures: . . . -- 1 Corinthians 15:3-4 KJV

            Whosoever believeth that Jesus is the Christ is born of God: . . . -- 1 John 5:1 KJV

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