Featured Do Open theists see God As Eternal?

Quantumfaith, while you are thinking on that, or after you think on that, would you mind considering the following: Regarding the free decisions of free creatures, if there is not even a single free decision that God does not know the outcome with certainty, then why would God make an appeal to this creature to do otherwise? In this case, is there any way that such an appeal would not be genuine? Would it not be the case then that God would not be able to know any probabilities, since probabilities would not exist? Of course, He would know them if he had created a world in which they did exist, but, how could probability exist at all in the mind of God if he knows in a way in which there is no probability, ie. certainty?

I value and am interested in your thoughts on the matter.

 

Bottom line is this: open theists cannot explain predictive prophecy.

If God cannot guarantee His plan or character than He is not actually God. The falsehood of Open Theism lies in its incorrect conception of the biblical God.

 

Please... this is not accurate and the information is out there. An omnipotent, omniscient, omniresourceful, faithful God CAN guarantee His plan and character. In what way does foreknowledge inform or enable God to accomplish his plan or guarantee his character? Please reference and back up your claims. Most of your claims amount to mischaracterization and cheap shots.

 

Reply to OP

Hi Yeshua1, I did not read the thread, so I am just responding to your opening post.

The future to some degree is known to God. The actual issue is whether it is exhaustively predestined and therefore exhaustively known, i.e. closed theism, or whether (a) God can know a future event without His prior knowledge resulting in that certain outcome being fixed and settled or (b) did God create man with the capacity to make autonomous decisions that are not predetermined, thereby giving mankind the capacity to alter the outcome of their lives by choosing either life or death as scripture says.

We know that no plan of God can be thwarted, therefore God will bring about whatever events or circumstances He declared will occur.

We can be certain God will bring about what He has declared by looking back at history and seeing He brought about everything He had declared based on the fulfillment described in scripture.

Limited open theism does not diminish God, it simply accepts what scripture says about God with no need to nullify God's attributes.

 

Can an eternal all powerful being be bothered with time? Yes. God could create "space/time" and within that universe, create mankind. Then God could relate to mankind "in time." This does not subject God to time, it simply allows God to choose to relate to us in the realm we exist in. Jesus became flesh, demonstrating God's willingness to relate to us in time.

 

God does not need to limit His infinite attributes to relate to His creation (man) inside His creation (spacetime). Just because exercises anthropomorphisms and anthropopathisms to communicate to His finite creatures, does not mean that part of His eternal being--His knowledge--must be limited as a consequence.*

God relating to us does not require Him to appropriate to His eternal being the limitations He gave to us: namely, limited knowledge that can increase.

There is a difference between the incarnate God-Man (Jesus Christ) and the actual eternal being of God. The knowledge of Jesus Christ the God-Man was indeed limited (Luke 2:52; Matthew 24:36); the knowledge of the eternal being of God is not.




*If you believe that God's knowledge can increase, you limit His knowledge.