I hold a view similar to the Open View of God.

[BelieveItOarKnot]

Rev 20:15 And anyone not found written in the Book of Life was cast into the lake of fire.

You might be surprised to know that there is not one single named person in the entire Bible said to have that fate nor is there a single named person even threatened with such a fate.

The devil and his messengers will have that fate, and Jesus openly showed us these bad actors are in mankind, including ourselves in the form of the TEMPTER.

So I for one am thankful for the wrath and damnation scriptures being directed to my own face, knowing to WHOM they are for.

Luke 16:24 "Then he cried and said, 'Father Abraham, have mercy on me, and send Lazarus that he may dip the tip of his finger in water and cool my tongue; for I am tormented in this flame.'

The rich man had no name for a reason. Because Satan and his own are IN MAN. They are the strangers among us.

Mat 5:29 If your right eye causes you to sin, pluck it out and cast it from you; for it is more profitable for you that one of your members perish, than for your whole body to be cast into hell.

Look, everyone sins. And sin is of the devil. We don't need to make excuses for the devil or heap up glory on ourselves for making good decisions knowing we engage the tempter internally. The cover doesn't work.

Mar 9:47 And if your eye causes you to sin, pluck it out. It is better for you to enter the kingdom of God with one eye, rather than having two eyes, to be cast into hell fire—

Mat 25:41 "Then He will also say to those on the left hand, 'Depart from Me, you cursed, into the everlasting fire prepared for the devil and his angels:

I have no issues with the damnation scriptures, personally applied, knowing that my adversary is assuredly damned.

Man shall live by every Word of God. Not just the Words we prefer. Matt. 4:4, Luke 4:4, Deut. 8:3

 

[BelieveItOarKnot]

No one is saying we have perfectly righteous deeds. It is not by human perfection that we are saved. But there is a level of righteousness that God accepts. Which, rather than call a "deed" I should call it a desire. A desire to do good, to follow God's ways. For many in attempting to do good still stumble.

IF man is justified by deeds, then any good deed of man will save them, regardless. And I'm probably good with that if it is applied across the board. I doubt there's ever been a person who hasn't done at least 1 good deed in their lives.

John the Apostle speaks to this directly in 1 John 4:7, stating that anyone who loves knows God and is born of God. K

Knowing that all people are God's children, Matt. 23:9, I'd say some of you might be surprised at the full occupancy rate in heaven.

Luke 17:4 And if he sins against you seven times in a day, and seven times in a day returns to you, saying, 'I repent,' you shall forgive him."

But whether we are saved or not is attributed to our heart's condition, as we see below. Jesus even called it our "deeds"

Honestly, we all have deeds both good and evil. Saying we never have evil deeds is not truthful.

Anytime we are not doing the works of Matt. 25, we are doing "goat works."

To say we have no sin, present tense have, is simply not TRUE. None of us are ever sinless and no amount of deeds is going to make it so. To think that is the case is a religious delusion.

 

[David Lamb]

So I for one am thankful for the wrath and damnation scriptures being directed to my how face, knowing to WHOM they are for.

Sorry, but what is your how face? The face you put on when you wonder how something happens?

 

[BelieveItOarKnot]

Sorry, but what is your how face? The face you put on when you wonder how something happens?

Misspelled, should be "own"

Typing too fast this a.m.

*corrected* Thank you David!

 

[David Lamb]

Misspelled, should be "own"

Typing too fast this a.m.

*corrected* Thank you David!

Thanks. It makes much more sense now.

 

[Mark Quayle]

Luke 12:47-48 And that servant who knew his master's will, and did not prepare himself or do according to his will, shall be beaten with many stripes. But he who did not know, yet committed things deserving of stripes, shall be beaten with few. For everyone to whom much is given, from him much will be required; and to whom much has been committed, of him they will ask the more.

To each of us are committed certain facts; God has given us the ability to reason, if we use our reason to keep on sinning, we will be punished. If we use our reason to make right choices, we will deliver our soul.

Over time, we form a nature. One that either accepts or pushes away God. God is long-suffering, giving us many chances to reform our nature. But ultimately, it is by our deeds that we will be judged.

Rom 2:4-11 Or do you despise the riches of His goodness, forbearance, and longsuffering, not knowing that the goodness of God leads you to repentance? But in accordance with your hardness and your impenitent heart you are treasuring up for yourself wrath in the day of wrath and revelation of the righteous judgment of God, who "WILL RENDER TO EACH ONE ACCORDING TO HIS DEEDS": eternal life to those who by patient continuance in doing good seek for glory, honor, and immortality; but to those who are self-seeking and do not obey the truth, but obey unrighteousness—indignation and wrath, tribulation and anguish, on every soul of man who does evil, of the Jew first and also of the Greek; but glory, honor, and peace to everyone who works what is good, to the Jew first and also to the Greek. For there is no partiality with God.

I don't know how that is an answer to what I said. That we have a will is not in question, nor even that we do make choices. I would deny the use of the word, "chances", above, and change it to "opportunities", but, whatever...

You said that God is not subject to mere chance, but it is not mere chance, not like rolling a die, it is more complex than that. Realistically, God is not subject to anything He has made. Do you think He can not constrain man's choices in such a way that He maintains His power.

You ask: "You said that God is not subject to mere chance, but it is not mere chance, not like rolling a die, it is more complex than that. Realistically, God is not subject to anything He has made. Do you think He can not constrain man's choices in such a way that He maintains His power."

Without the question mark at the end of that, it is questionable whether you intended that as a question or as a rhetorical question—a comment.

I suppose you think it a logical countering to what I do say or believe. You would be wrong in that. I don't say he does not constrain man's choices—I don't say that man has not choice, nor that God doesn't, as you put it, constrain them. The implication you don't come out and say—that those choices would be otherwise entirely free of constraint—is a self-contradictory notion. The law of cause-and-effect applies regardless; God knew those choices, and created anyway: Therefore, it is obvious that he intentionally caused them.

 

[Mark Quayle]

What type of God is more of a failure, one who "actively plans", "by His will", to damn mankind because of His wrath? Or one who tried to redeem man, but man fails to respond, contrary to His desire?

Eze 33:11 Say to them: 'As I live,' says the Lord GOD, 'I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but that the wicked turn from his way and live. Turn, turn from your evil ways! For why should you die, O house of Israel?'

Starting, as you seem to think you did, with the fact that a god who fails to complete what he set out to do is not God, it is not a logical result that God must try, but fail, to redeem mankind. That notion denies his omnipotence and omniscience, his aseity, and many other things attributable to God. God did not plan to save all mankind, and fail to do so. He did not even try to save all mankind. It is not logical to exalt man's capabilities to God's level, as you do in matters of mental agility, moral ability, sentient stance, and so on. We are not able to choose in the same way he is.

Second, and as I have said before, it IS logical to see, from several different directions of thought, that we are not able to be entirely free to choose without being caused/compelled to do so. Cause-and-effect is completely pervasive, and ties all fact together precisely as things pan out. We do choose, and that choice is real, and many of my ilk even say we are free to choose within constraints, though I don't say that. But if one's choices are made from a corrupt spirit, that choice is corrupt, no matter what choice is made. For example, if one chooses to "accept Christ", from a corrupt spirit, that choice is corrupt, and is not valid to produce the proposed outcome. Our fickle choices should have shown us that by now.

Third, it is logical to see, also from several different directions of thought, that God did not intend to save all, because there can be no more first causes—God is the only one. Yet you propose free will, where, like Gods, we are free to produce entirely spontaneous choices on our own, apart from prior cause.

Fourth, as I have often shown, SINCE God is First Cause, all things come from him, logically descend from his causing, however you want to put it. All other things besides HIM, are result. So, if God knew precisely, yet caused, then all things were intended precisely as they fall out.

 

[Derf]

Starting, as you seem to think you did, with the fact that a god who fails to complete what he set out to do is not God,

Do you not think God set out to destroy Nineveh in 40 days? If not, why did He tell them He was going to destroy them in 40 days? Does He have to lie to get them to repent?

it is not a logical result that God must try, but fail, to redeem mankind. That notion denies his omnipotence and omniscience, his aseity, and many other things attributable to God. God did not plan to save all mankind, and fail to do so. He did not even try to save all mankind. It is not logical to exalt man's capabilities to God's level, as you do in matters of mental agility, moral ability, sentient stance, and so on. We are not able to choose in the same way he is.

Correct, God did not set out to redeem all mankind, but He is not happy about the result that all mankind will not be saved.

Second, and as I have said before, it IS logical to see, from several different directions of thought, that we are not able to be entirely free to choose without being caused/compelled to do so.

Are you saying God is not capable of making us entirely free to choose without being caused/compelled to do so?

Cause-and-effect is completely pervasive, and ties all fact together precisely as things pan out. We do choose, and that choice is real, and many of my ilk even say we are free to choose within constraints, though I don't say that. But if one's choices are made from a corrupt spirit, that choice is corrupt, no matter what choice is made. For example, if one chooses to "accept Christ", from a corrupt spirit, that choice is corrupt, and is not valid to produce the proposed outcome. Our fickle choices should have shown us that by now.

If one chooses to repent, from a corrupt spirit, is it not still a valid choice to repent, even if the power to accomplish perfectly it is lacking? Were the people of Nineveh then not really repentant, and God's mercy not the right response, since it was a corrupt and faulty repentance?

Third, it is logical to see, also from several different directions of thought, that God did not intend to save all, because there can be no more first causes—God is the only one.

So God can't make a being that can make a free choice. God can't do it at all, since only He is the first cause?

Yet you propose free will, where, like Gods, we are free to produce entirely spontaneous choices on our own, apart from prior cause.

Why not? What prevents God from making a person that can then reject His will? Yet you are saying that no one can reject God's will--it is impossible for God to make such a creature.

Fourth, as I have often shown, SINCE God is First Cause, all things come from him, logically descend from his causing, however you want to put it. All other things besides HIM, are result. So, if God knew precisely, yet caused, then all things were intended precisely as they fall out.

Which means that no one ever has acted against God's will, right? So everyone, for all time, has been completely within the will of God, and therefore God punishes people for doing His will, exactly as He wants them to do.

 

[Mark Quayle]

Do you believe that being born again ("regeneration") is the result of the Spirit of God taking up residence within one (which is what I take you to be referring to as "spiritual baptism"), or is it the cause of the Spirit of God taking up residence.

In other words, do WE generate valid faith, or does God (the Spirit of God) generate it within us, fully valid? (The amount of faith is another question, not related to its validity).

Do you not think God set out to destroy Nineveh in 40 days? If not, why did He tell them He was going to destroy them in 40 days? Does He have to lie to get them to repent?

It was not a lie. It was a threat. And, indeed, if they had not repented, he would have destroyed them. (By the way, if he had not intended that they repent, why would he go to all that trouble to send Jonah in the precise way that he did?

Correct, God did not set out to redeem all mankind, but He is not happy about the result that all mankind will not be saved.

That's a side issue. I'm not saying he's happy that most will perish.

Are you saying God is not capable of making us entirely free to choose without being caused/compelled to do so?

No. I'm saying that it is a logically self-contradictory notion. (Nobody but God is entirely free). So why would he even consider it? It's not that he can't. It's that it is a non-thing.

If one chooses to repent, from a corrupt spirit, is it not still a valid choice to repent, even if the power to accomplish perfectly it is lacking? Were the people of Nineveh then not really repentant, and God's mercy not the right response, since it was a corrupt and faulty repentance?

The story of Nineveh and Jonah is not about salvation, by the way, so it is not the same sort of repentance. I can go to the fridge to get cream cheese for my bagel, go to the living room where my bagel is, and when I open the cream cheese, it has gray hair growing in it. I repent of my course of action. I go back to the kitchen for something else. The people of Nineveh were wicked, God demanded they change their ways or else. This is not repentance concerning their sinfulness. It is simple repentance of what they were doing. Would you claim they loved God after that repentance? It was still corrupt. But, at least, and for a time, they stopped what they were doing.

So God can't make a being that can make a free choice. God can't do it at all, since only He is the first cause?

Define free choice. Uncaused choice? That makes no sense. Only God chooses, uncaused to do so. If you like, we can into the details of that. Can you show me how anything happens uncaused to do so? Only God is uncaused.

Why not? What prevents God from making a person that can then reject His will? Yet you are saying that no one can reject God's will--it is impossible for God to make such a creature.

Does the capability of rejecting God's commands, and even God's offer of forgiveness and salvation, imply free will? Demonstrate to me that there is anything we do entirely spontaneously. For starters: Is there anything we do that we don't most want to do at that instant of decision?

Which means that no one ever has acted against God's will, right? So everyone, for all time, has been completely within the will of God, and therefore God punishes people for doing His will, exactly as He wants them to do.

Here and above, you consider "God's will" as only one thing. The implication is that God fully intended that we all be holy as he is holy; yet, somehow, only Christ Jesus has been able to do that.

The law —all of it God's will—was given to demonstrate our sin and our need for him, because we are unable to obey it perfectly, and so we deserve death. We need his mercy. Even you don't believe that is all that his will is. He also wills for things to happen quite apart from his law. And those things are a little harder to know. So there are at least two things that are called/considered the will of God. The one thing is not the same as the other. If you think God never intended for Lucifer to rebel and Adam to sin, then why did he bother to make us? He made us to be the Bride of Christ, the Body of Christ, the Children of God, the Dwelling Place of God, his People with Him in a way the angels can never be. And THAT would not happen, but for Redemption.

So everyone has acted against his command (his revealed will), but none of us can ruin his plans (his hidden will). He doesn't fly by the seat of his pants to accomplish some general end. Read the prophets where repeatedly God used foreign kings to punish Israel —even refers to one of them as a tool— and then punishes them for doing so. They were not obeying. They were only accomplishing what God had planned for them to do. Do you think that Satan will not have to pay for what he did to Job? Yet God put him up to it, fully intending that that beautiful book would be read by his people.