The Closed Theism of Calvinism

Reply to Skandelon,

If you take it as a no, you misunderstand me. All things are possible with God, so to say "no" would be unbiblical. What I say is God's word reveals that He has chosen not to know some things about the future. Now according to my logic, and not based on God's word, God would choose not to know our future decisions because that would eliminate our ability to alter our future. But even if that logic, as presented by Boettner, is flawed, I find no verse that says God has chosen to know our decisions before we are alive. Now of course He could predestine we will be born, and then predestine our choices, such that whatever He purposes to accomplish, He accomplishes. But that is not the issue. It is supporting what I believe is pure speculation from scripture, such as God knows the future exhaustively, when verse after verse denies this fiction.

And as I pointed out, God does know what we would do in a given situation, such as if the miracles performed here had been preformed there, they would have repented. Or Jesus telling Peter how he would die.

 

Reply to StefanM

The history of the Reformation is that some who went beyond what others thought was biblical, were branded as heretics and burned at the stake. Your charge could have been made against Luther, Calvin, you name it.

You dismissed my views with generalities, saying they are unorthodox, but did not support you charge with specifics that I could address.

Closed Theism is a heresy, and that happens to be the orthodox view. So to the extent Calvinists deny that men make choices autonomously that affect the outcome of their lives, Calvinism embraces Closed Theism.

Bottom line, Open Theism and Closed Theism are two extremes and both are false doctrines, which ignore verse after verse.

 

Tom, God forgives our sins and remembers them no more forever. So God can choose not to know something. Black letter Bible.

If it suits His purpose not to know something, He does not know it. For example, when God stopped Abraham from killing Isaac, He said, "Now I know" indicating that before Abraham had drawn his knife to kill his son, God had chosen not to search Abraham's heart for this piece of information.

No, it is not possible to do something different from what God foreknew you would do. No plan of God can be thwarted, so what He foreknows, He has predestined, and what He predestines He foreknows.

Yes, my view changes the orthodox definition of omniscience, from God knows everything imagainable includeing the future exhaustively, to God knows everything He has chosen to know. Using this definition the doctrine is biblical, using the older one, the doctrine is unbiblical.

No, this change in the defintion of omniscience to agree with the Bible, does not require an change in the characteristic of God being immutable. But again, we must have a common understanding of that doctrine to be sure it has not been altered.

Here is a definition off the internet:

The perfection of God by which He is devoid of all change in essence, attributes, consciousness, will, and promises. No change is possible in God, because all change must be to better or worse, and God is absolute perfection. No cause for change in God exists, either in Himself or outside of Him.

But this does not preclude God changing His mind, and giving mercy rather than justice or giving justice rather than mercy. He can say, if you do this, I will do that, but if you do something else, I will not do that, but will do something else.

 

No, I can prove Calvinism makes that assertion by quoting Boettner. His argument makes sense to me, but as I have said, since the bible says anything is possible with God, I cannot disprove God could foreknow and yet not predestine.

If we engage is the speculation of men, for example, time travel, then God could know what we chose "in time" because He is "outside of time." But none of this can be supported scripturally.

As I said at the on-set, I believe in what the Bible says, and not in what it does not rule out. Arminianism is based on lots of scriptural truth, well founded but it has, in my opinion three problems. The bible clearly says God chose us individually during our lifetime, not before creation, because we were rich in faith and loved God. James 2:5. He chose us by spiritually placing us in Christ, thus making us members of the corporately elected group of His redemption plan, the body of Christ, the church, the called out.

 

The history of the Reformation is that some who went beyond what others thought was biblical, were branded as heretics and burned at the stake. Your charge could have been made against Luther, Calvin, you name it.

You dismissed my views with generalities, saying they are unorthodox, but did not support you charge with specifics that I could address.

Closed Theism is a heresy, and that happens to be the orthodox view. So to the extent Calvinists deny that men make choices autonomously that affect the outcome of their lives, Calvinism embraces Closed Theism.

Bottom line, Open Theism and Closed Theism are two extremes and both are false doctrines, which ignore verse after verse.

 

As I said at the on-set, I believe in what the Bible says, and not in what it does not rule out. Arminianism is based on lots of scriptural truth, well founded but it has, in my opinion three problems. The bible clearly says God chose us individually during our lifetime, not before creation, because we were rich in faith and loved God. James 2:5. He chose us by spiritually placing us in Christ, thus making us members of the corporately elected group of His redemption plan, the body of Christ, the church, the called out.

Hi Skandelon, I bolded my statement. Notice I did not say, "God chose for certain individuals to come to faith? "

I did not reject the Calvinist view of Omniscience because I was trying to preclude exhaustive foreknowledge. but because of Scripture.